Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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.
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.
You dont need to stop fixing them - you just need to start changing the *way* you fix them - eg, you fix them by removing (or at least hiding and removing from the default) IE, and installing FireFox. When they see its 'different', just tell them its a new version. Most people don't even understand the difference between software, the OS, and the Internet anyway.
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
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.
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
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.