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Firefox Usage Climbing
kbox writes "According to the Amsterdam analytics firm onestat The Firefox browser has jumped from a global market share of 8.7% to a whopping 13% since April 2005. The national usage of Firefox make some interesting reading, too, with Firefox making up 16% in the USA, 24% in Australia and a huge 39% in Germany."
Unsurprisingly, on Slashdot we skew the averages somewhat, with Firefox weighing in at 65% of our traffic... but sadly 18% of our Firefox users need to upgrade to the latest version ;) Go do that now.
Would Taco like to furnish us with those stats? :P
Here at my office, Firefox is the default encouraged officially sanctioned browser of choice. After all those javascript/buffer overflow/remote code execution errors we gave the heave ho to IE and made sure that everyone had a copy of FF installed. So, put me down for 0.000000000000001% of those users!
Well, this is one firm's results and we all know how sometimes findings can be biased. If you want the full report from onestat, it is here with all browsers covered.
:)
Interestingly, Adtech found similar results (~12% in Europe) while The Counter put Firefox at more around ~9-10% for those months. Net Applications placed Firefox at around 10% also. Of course, Wikipiedia has a decent article on this with combined data at the bottom.
I guess 13% seems like kind of a stretch and 10% seems a bit more realistic. I don't know what makes any one source more reliable than the other though as none of them really talk about their strategy for attaining these statistics.
The big question shouldn't be "where is Firefox's percentage" but instead "how do we make Firefox more appealing to non-technical users?" Because it's clear that the technically savvy people have adopted Firefox but you'll never make it past 15% of the population with that attitude. I hate to say it, but introducing some functionality that Internet Explorer doesn't have might be the only way to accomplish that. And when you do that, you lose the stability and security that made it so popular in the first place. Solution? Perhaps a MySpace plug-in in light of recent news?
My work here is dung.
I assume the majority of that growth must be on Windows, but I'm wondering if Firefox usage is growing at the same rate on different OSs, since they have different alternatives. Mac and *nix users have some pretty decent non-Firefox browsers that arent available to Windows users. Just curious, anyone got relevant stats?
Oh no... it's the future.
I do use 1.5 on my home machine, and one thing I've noticed is that managing bookmarks in 1.0.7 is easier - I can drag and drop items as necessary, whereas 1.5 makes me use a "move up" button.
Sorry, /. editors, I will NOT be upgrading any time soon.
That's pretty good numbers considering the vast majority of web users have never heard of Firefox. All my IT/tech-head friends are on Firefox and have been for some time but pretty much all the 'normal' users, mums, dads, people at work etc. have never heard of it and even when shown it simply don't understand why they would want to change from IEx. Web standards? Reliability? Safety? They just don't care. They fire up their PC and get browsing with IEx. It works for them, that's all they're interested in. They might care more if people like me didn't keep doing a free clean of their machine to remove all the muck they have downloaded every few months.
:-)
So, if you want Firefox to flourish, stop fixing friends PCs for free
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Safari pisses me off though because lack of design mode is a major flaw, but one that is obviously fixable. I'm an ardent mac supporter, but the long and slow response to this makes me feel like Apple is sticking it to us (the mac faithful) because they can -- they know they've got a captive audience.
I've taken the Writely path now -- we (my company) no longer support Safari on our web applications -- we just can't. And I don't see us ever going back to that when we can code to one standard -- Firefox -- and have it work everywhere.
So I agree with you -- thanks Mozilla, and thanks OSS for having projects in which the developers are responsive to the customers needs. If I need something I can sponser someone to make an extension or tweak. We've done that several times with Thunderbird, we have some custom work we paid for in a few other OSS projects that went back to the community.
So I'm in the weird position of being a mac lover and an apple hater. Which is weird, but I think some people will know what I'm saying. Apple has contributed back where they've been required, but with the promotion of DRMs, ITunes, etc, they're not really an ally of Open Source, except in that they see OSS as an ally of convenience against MSFT. If there were now Microsoft, Apple would be doing exactly the same things MSFT has done.Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
The hard part is not the appeal of the browser. The hard part is getting people to try it. Once Firefox has its foot in the door, people will let it in the whole way.
No, the hard part is that people don't care. Valid technical reasons for doing something don't encumber the mind of most people. They just look for their bottom line, and in the realm of browsing the internet, that bottom line is getting to a web page with the least effort.
If you got Firefox installed on hard drives as they shipped from manufacturers, usage would increase dramatically. Hand out free install CD's? Not so much.
Actually, I still miss Firebird. Birds are way better than Foxes. Especially when they're on fire. And 16% use in the US counts as being on fire.
50% of people will always use IE, because they're too dumb to use IE to download Firefox. Makes you wish MS would just give it up and adopt Firefox, huh? It would save a boatload of cash.
Anyhow ... my browser is gonna be better than both!!!
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Mozilla has the ability to switch the text zoom from 100% to 200% or 300% or even more IN A SINGLE STEP.This feature is essential for me, that is why I use Mozilla and not Firefox.Is there a Firefox plugin for doing that?.If the answer is yes I may switch, otherwise I'll stick with Mozilla. Unfortunately they stopped the depelopment of Mozilla to version 1.7 something. Why dont they implement this feature in Firefox? Both Netscape 4.7 and higher and Mozilla have it, but not Firefox. I switch from 100% to 2-300% and back hundreds of times everyday and Firefox is too awkward for this task.
"At work, there is one system that requires IE _on windows_, and we had to get a new computer, with windows just to view one website, and I had a word or two with them. And guess what? They told me that they are now targeting Firefox as the target browser, and for that to be cross platform."
Some advice please? my university work place has an expenses system which required me to use IE if I want to claim for travel expenses etc. Doesn't work on Firefox or other browsers. I have to keep IE on my computer solely for this purpose. Can you (or any other slashdotters) advise on some well chosen arguments that I could use in an email to try and persuade the management (and I guess the central organisation techies) to modify the system so I can use firefox instead? cheers in advance...
A friend of my father called me to fix his computer because he had spyware problems. He did not know Firefox existed...I have met many people over 40 that use the Internet and have no idea of what Firefox is.
That's not true any more -- OEM manufacturers can build firefox (or any other software they want) into their windows builds without fearing retribution from MSFT. That's what the anti-trust thing was all about.
And the last time I was at MicroCenter (a large computer chain) in Boston, a local entrepeneur (kid had to be 14) was distributing for free a CD with FireFox, Open Office, SpyBot, Gimp and Trillian (I told him Trillian wasn't open) on it -- as well as html document that had a link in it to his Amazon donation page, where he was asking for $2.50 which seemed pretty reasonable to me. I asked him about his traffic, and he said he passes out about 200 CD's a day on Saturday and Sunday. Obviously he must have access to a multiple image burner to crank out volume like that (or he was pulling my leg), but seems like a good way to make a bit of $$$ for a kid, and at the same time help spread the love
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
No, the hard part is that people don't care.
It's all a matter of timing. I've made a nice bit of pocket change cleaning spyware and viruses for my non-technical friends. A friend whose computer has just been saved from uselessness can be very open to the idea of trying Firefox...
Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Wow, that's a nice little gimmick.
When I get stuck doing tech support for family, the first thing I do is delete all the IE links, install FF, and import their bookmarks. Normally when I talk to them later, the first thing they mention is how few popups they see.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I've traditionally used IE. I keep up with the patches, so I haven't had spyware or virus issues in a very long time, and IE always just seemed to fit how I liked to operate. I've got Firefox installed, and sometimes I use it, but until the last update I found it would periodically cause my network connection to fail. I'd reset it via the control panel and it'd be good for a while, but inevitably it would happen again. It was the only application to exhibit this quirk.
Recently I downloaded a copy of Opera, and I find it far more to my liking than Firefox. It's well-behaved, fast, and everything feels intuitive, which is something I never got from Firefox. I'm very happy with it, and I use it about half-and-half with IE.
I de-installed Firefox last night, after realizing I'd probably never start it again.
These statistics do not filter out things such as Business users. Large companies have millons of employee's who browse the internet every day, and i would assume the majority do NOT use firefox, as their system is locked down, and IE is default, and only browser Available. It would be interesting to see what the usage stats are for HOME users. I think that Firefox growth will continue until Vista comes out, at which point it will slow for a short period while people adjust to the new OS. Lots will try out IE7, and simple see that it is a clone of firefox(and other browsers), years behind in joining the game. But soon after its release, new versions of FF, Opera, and other browsers will emerge with even better features, and we will see the numbers start to raise again.
Hopefully larger companies will begin to make the switch, and people will then adopt what they learn at work, to their home environment as well.
Most people i know, have adopted Firefox at home, but that is because the know me, and i did it for them, or told them to make the switch.
-EL
The advent of firefox has definitely been a good thing. For me at least, it not only is a good browser, but it has raised awareness, and subsequently usage of other alternatives. I no longer use firefox, as I switched to opera, but without Firefox and all that I loved about it i would have never known about other browsers (or /. for that matter, I was a tech n00b)
I am Spartacus
Users should *not* upgrade, or for that matter, probably even *use* Firefox 1.5.0.x unless they plan to routinely stop it and restart it. Firefox 1.5.0.4 does have memory heap, aka memory cache, fragmentation and usage problems! I am runing Linux 2.6.16.1 on a 512MB Pentium 4 and I routinely have to restart Firefox every 1-2 days because its memory usage grows endlessly. Once Firefox is consuming 60-70% of the RAM on the machine (in the resident memory set) the machine performance as well as Firefox will slow to a crawl. The only way out of this is to restart Firefox (which can take 15-30 minutes due to the long shutdown and session restore times). The long shutdown times are due to heap fragmentation and poor Linux paging strategies. The long restart times are due to network access constraints and CPU usage when opening many windows and tabs.
I would only recommend that people switch to Firefox when the memory (heap) management issues are addressed. Netscape 4.72 was a *much* better browser from this perspective. It worked fine on a Pentium Pro with much less memory under Windows 2000 before I made the mistake of deciding to try Firefox under Linux.
I would also suggest that the Linux paging system needs work. If one has what should be a "memory thrashing" situation (95+% of RAM used, mostly by Firefox) one should not see minimal CPU (20%) and minimal disk (20%) activity.
Just because its "open source" (and I am a strong proponent of open source) doesn't mean its *better*!
Yes, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's the sort of organisation that keylogs and checks flash drives when they're plugged in.
I did that once to my father. He insisted that IE was fine and he didn't want Mozilla, but hated popups & spyware - so he ran like 4 other programs to stop popups, find spyware and whatnot.
Anyhow, I installed firefox, then installed the firefoxie theme that skins ff to look like IE, and changed the FF icon to the IE one. He didn't know the difference, except he thought his anti-popup software was working better than ever. When I told him he'd been using Mozilla he was surprised, pleased and stuck with FF (but ditched the IE theme).
IE7 is a major improvement on IE6, but it isn't anything like as integrated into the OS. Secondly, if you chose Firefox as your default browser, then all your other MS progs will respect that decision and use it.
Pretty much all the MS websites out there now support Firefox, including their ajax enabled sites such as live.com. The only site that doesn't as as far as I'm aware, is windowsupdate, and Vista won't be using that, as it has its own program for doing updates.
This all gives firefox a major opportunity to take market share from ie.
Umm, dude. They think that FireFox is an IM application.
:)
... My boss related some story about how someone once managed to get a non-standard office chair out of him, and suddenly everyone wanted a new chair, driving him nuts. It didn't go so well when I offered to install FireFox for everyone...
I sincerely doubt they know how to log things like that. They really don't sound like the clueful types
As for my workplace, I'm allowed FireFox only because I'm IT. For everyone else, they're stuck with the "standard"
As for firewalls, here we have one that works by inserting a request for HTTP basic authentication into all your browser's requests man-in-the-middle style (and a message about needing to authenticate if you use anything but a web browser, e.g. telnet). My solution was to modify LWP::UserAgent to deal with the ever-changing realm it requests and create a script that automagically logs me in when necessary.
Which just brings this argument full circle - the Firefox statistics are as arbitrary as the story. So really, what do we know?
I got into an argument today about whether Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was any good. He said that 77% of viewers gave it a good rating, while only 50% of the critics did. I countered that his statistic was skewed because the critics had been forced ot see it (more or less), and the movie had only been out for three days meaning the only public to see it were those with a pent-up demand for the product (people with a natural bias towards liking it). That the 77% of the public liked it was only because its frontloaded with fanboys.