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Firefox Slides, IE Gains?
limber writes "InformationWeek is reporting that a Dutch Web metrics company is stating that Microsoft's Internet Explorer has gained market share, contrary to other recent studies, while Firefox has lost market share, during the last two months. 'People are not switching so often to Firefox as before,' said Niels Brinkman, co-founder of OneStat."
I'm so sick of statistics. Who really cares whether IE or Firefox has more market share? Even if Firefox has .005% market share, and IE has 99.999% market share, I will continue to use Firefox. If 99.999% of the world jumped off a bridge, would you do the same thing?
Do we really need an update every 2 weeks of the status of FF vs. IE?
I love my phoe-firebird/fox/something, but that's my choice.
Alternatively, could slash include a ticker on the frontpage?
I suspect Firefox et al will always ride a +/- 2 percent sinewave with IE displaying a similar leading edge ripple. Rolls Royce and Ferrari do not think or speak in terms of "market share." They have a core following that will always remain, and will always be small. The masses will always drive Chevys, Toyotas, or whatever.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Many regular users of Firefox like myself are forced to use IE for some things like Launchcast and many other nonFF friendly sites. Also, many people employ FF extensions like IE Tab to use IE within FF. Of course, this may also have something to do with the IE 7.0 beta usage.
http://religiousfreaks.com/It's a nice browser, so why don't you just use without beeing "concerned" that your neighbour and the cat uses it as well.
I think it's more a case of more new PC purchases during the Christmas/New Year periods, that's why IE (preinstalled with most new PCs) "gained" some market share.
I can't imagine anyone would actively download and install IE, so unlike Firefox, IE's gain is not a real gain, but a side effect of its parent -- Windows.
Uncensored Google results requested and delivered by email
One for firefox, one for IE, and a red stapler - the editors' way of saying that they're doing a Troll Tuesday article on the readers.
Its a bit more subtle than posting "this story from the YHB[TT] YFI HAND department"
It's sad, but it's expected.
Firefox, Opera, etc (and even avantbrowser) for advanced users only. Nowadays it's considered "difficult" to install software by clicking "next, next, next".
Do not get me wrong. It's not that Firefox is not user friendly or easier to use, however there are so many "PC users" below "novice" level which will disable an antivirus if they're unable to open an infected file. And there are many "system admins", (which are in charge of internet cafes or school labs) who only knows how to install Windows and Office (and probably from "recovery CDs"). Times are different now.
(Previously everybody not only knew what every file in their C:\DOS and C:\WINDOWS were for, they could also program in at least in one language).
We cannot expect any more growth until PC users are more educated.
Oh great! Now Firefox is losing ground to IE. May as well just throw the damn laptop out the window now!!!
you get counted as buying IE.
Every time you download Firefox, you get counted as "buying" Firefox.
Of course:
1. if you have twenty boxen like we do, you only download Firefox once and then roll it onto each boxen internally - 20 copies, one download.
2. if you stop using IE on your laptop and use Firefox, noone REDUCES the count of IE users by one, they only INCREASE the count of Firefox users. Thus, IE will always have more users, since they never LOSE them when you switch to Firefox or Opera.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Last time I dared mention that, I was told that FF is perfect, it's probably just a buggy extension, which may be true, but if the extensions I like (adblock plus, html tidy, and web developer) don't work, I might as well use Opera or IE.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
> People are not switching so often to Firefox as before
:)
Mostly everyone who needed support for web standarts and that geekly interface has already switched.
And the rest are people who simply doesn't care what browser to use or don't know about firefox.
And maybe the fashion has gone from these shores.
So it's up to advertisement and marketing to make them switch, I guess
annoying.
Secondly, they count browser usage based on network traffic, not based on number of downloads/PC's sold.
RTFA.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
It's "Windows" but you called it "Windoze", how cute.
Microsoft sabotages the better programs on it's platform
Please go ahead and provide some proof that Microsoft is sabotaging Firefox. Please, I'm sure every single Slashdot reader would like to get their hands on that kind of evidence. Really, you need to provide some proof of what you just said. Thanks.
you need to change your evangelism to platform migration
"Evangelism" - is that your term for making insane, ridiculous claims about "Windoze" and "M$"?
There's enough to take Microsoft to task without people like you "helping" those of us who are working for broader acceptance of free software. Thanks, but no thanks.
You want to know the cause of the numbers?
Ok, how about this; every day, there are a lot of computers sold. A large percentage of these computers have Windows XP pre-installed. All the computers with Windows XP installed have IE. I have not yet seen any computer that had XP pre-installed that also had Firefox pre-installed. I know it pains you, but computers sold with desktop Linux just aren't that popular among the general population; they want their Play-skool Windows, with the nice big 'e' that says 'Internet'. There are also a lot of corporate/education products that require ActiveX controls, and thus IE. For those two reasons alone, I doubt Firefox will ever break 20% share of the "browser market" among the general population.
Speaking of which, why does everyone talk about it as "market share"? Last I checked, it's been a decade since any major browser other than Opera was not free (as in beer). The only real advantage to "market share" that I see is, the browser maker gets to set the initial default homepage...
I had this experience on Windows. Ya know what? I'm using IE for most of my regular browsing. I'm even using it right now. It doesn't crash, it supports all of my plugins, and I've never really been a huge fan of tabs (at times, yes, but mostly I ignore them). I don't click on random executables, I don't install arbitrary ActiveX controls, and I've never been infected... IE, like XP, is pretty much "good enough," for a whole slew of people who just want to render them some HTML.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Nothing quite like a 'Firefox Gains!' story. 100's of replies about how awesome firefox is.
A 'Firefox slips this month' story and what do you get? 'GOD STOP TELLING ME WHATS UP WITH FIREFOX ALL THE TIME I DONT CARE'
Hmmmm...
Software tends to be winner-take-all: whoever has the most market share ultimately wins. That's why people care so much about these statistics.
For proprietary software, this tends to be because whoever has the most users has the most profit, since development costs are fixed (economists call this "sunk costs"). Therefore, the market share leader can invest in more marketing and product development, getting more users (virtuous circle) and eventually edge out the competition, winning the market.
Sometimes network effects play a role, too: it makes sense to use what everyone else is using, because then your software will be compatible with theirs. The more people that use it, the more value it has to you--which, incidently, is why people often advocate the software that they use. Advocating your favorite piece of software may be a completely rational thing to do!
I'm not entirely sure how this works for Free software that is distributed gratis, like Firefox. But I can guess. Assume some percentage of the total number of users will be contributers to the project: bug writers, documentation contributers, software developers, artists, philanthropists, corportate sponsors, etc. Then, it follows that having more users will lead to more contributors, and ultimately a higher quality product. Thus, Free software is also winner-take-all.
Oh yes, and on Linux you need a GNOME environment or must turn over backwards just to change fonts, C-q doesn't work, Shift-Button1 doesn't work, too many preferences are hidden, etc.pp.
The firefox developers think they know better than their users what a good program is. Well, I had to discover that this means I'm not among their target audience. I check it out again from time to time to see if something has changed; but no. I suppose I'll try SeaMonkey and see what they are up to.
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
The fact is, Mozilla.org heavily advertises the existence of extensions. Then, when you have problems with them, blames the problems on the user or the extensions author. Not even the author thinks that recent versions of Adblock Plus actually have worked well. Here are the recent bugs:
Detailed changelog for Adblock Plus 0.6.0.4, released on January 21, 2006:
It's the old Mozilla baloney: "Oh yes, it didn't work before, but NOW it works."