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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.
Netscape was good, or at lest the best of the day. It ran on every obscure platform under the sun. It was like java before even java. Runs and is able to be debugged and crashed everywhere.
I've heard from Netscape developers that the highlight was when they realized they were _the_ browser for the web, and they were seeing web addresses (complete with the http:/// part on them) on the side of trucks and all that. I also heard that the secretary is quite wealthy now due to stock options, the whole nine yards.
Well, they stagnated. And IE came and IMNSHO, ruined the web experience in the late 90s to early 00s. And during that time Netscape released their code into the Mozilla project. It then got worse. AOL bought Netscape, and Netscape is just a memory.
But then, guess what happened?
Because of the open code and open standards, we got the web back! My browser of choice is Safari. I really like it. It does almost 100% of what I think a browser should do. And it too is based on open standards and OSS (KHTML), and Apple has given patches back to the KHTML people.
And then Mozilla grew into Firefox, and things are getting better on the web again. I recently ran into two websites that required IE. One was for my taxes, and I told them that sure this time I can use IE on the Mac, but IE on the Mac is dead and if they want my business, they need to support standards. 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.
Hey, as sucky as IE was, it did help the scene a little bit. It focused the other guys to care about security and for standards compliance, and today I have a number of good choices for browsing the web on a number of platforms, and its getting better every day.
Thank you Mozilla team, and thank you Microsoft.
Would Taco like to furnish us with those stats? :P
That number might be higher (for /. users), but some may do a bit of viewing while at work. Some employers do not allow Firefox for some reason.
Starmen.net
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!
It's 'Firefox'. Not 'FireFox'.
Thanks for reading.
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.
...One could also say that MS has gone *six years* without updating their browser, and Firefox is only at 16%. I mean, I'm as happy as anyone. I'm using it now. But I really see that market share getting cut in half within 2 years of IE7 coming out. MS just won't put up with this, and when you can put your product on every PC that's sold, and the competition can't, you don't have to be great to win.
Full browser stats
Full OS stats
It's easy to forget that not too long ago I was waiting for the latest upgrade to IE, downloading and installing it manually, because it was the best browser out there. I appreciate the efforts of the developers, too.
But I can't thank Microsoft. Because they quit trying to be the best and tried instead to lock out and eliminate competition, through means familiar enough to everybody here that I'm not going to repeat them.
And I don't think I'm just saying "what have they done for me lately" - Microsoft's war on the competition went some way towards undoing the good things that came from their competition with Netscape.
I agree with you, otherwise (for whatever that's worth). Just a thought
Using plain ol' text since 1968
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
I think they're referring to people like me who still run 1.0.7 and need to upgrade to 1.5.0.4.
The results are probably skewed by people like me who use the version of Firefox that came with their distro. I'm using Debian Stable with Firefox 1.0.4
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
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.
Nah, they'll just get annoyed that their computer is slow. They don't link their behavior with the computer's state unless the relationship is clear and immediate. Programmers and techies are used to that sort of thinking, but then, they already use Firefox for the most part.
Another tip for Slashdot readers using Firefox... get the Firefox Slashdotter Extension. It expands hidden comments inline using AJAX, allows you to change skins, informs you via an icon on the status bar if you got mod points, displays links to Coral Cache, plus more.
Well, they stagnated. And IE came and IMNSHO, ruined the web experience in the late 90s to early 00s. And during that time Netscape released their code into the Mozilla project. It then got worse. AOL bought Netscape, and Netscape is just a memory.
Yeah, Netscape definitely stagnated back around version 4 or 5 - when the browser was a bloated mess and was in danger of collapsing under its own weight. When IE 4 came out it was quite simply a better browser. It rendered pages faster and had a much better user interface. I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to say that IE "ruined the web experience in the late 90s". They were the best game in town back then.
I made the move to Firefox a few years ago when pop-ups were a huge problem, and discovered that Firefox was about a LOT more than just blocking popups. IE had started to stagnate bigtime. IE5 and IE6 offered no meaningful improvements (although a pop up blocker appeared way late in the game). People knew that IE sucked but the word hadn't spread about Firefox yet. The momentum is clearly shifting towards Firefox now.
I just hope that they don't start to stagnate or bloat up with unneeded features too much. Fortunately they let extensions take care of any "bloat" that a user may want, which I think is good. Just keep a small core set of features and let people add enhancements on as they see fit. So far the history of web browsing has shown that through many generations of innovation come long periods of stagnation. From Mosaic to Netscape to IE to Firefox to ???
We need a Windows version with some of the extensions pre-bundled. Set up the AdBlock and Spell Checking, and dispatch that version. That way it consists of Download -> Install -> Doubleclick -> Browsing!!
Remember that some people still use I.E. at work and have FireFox at home. So probably there are more firefox users that 65% in the /. crowd
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
Everyone seems to be hoping that Firefox will replace IE... I just don't see that happening.
I'm a happy user of Firefox. I use Firefox because it does things that IE doesn't, and I really like the ability to customize it to how I like. The thing is, though, that for most casual web users, IE does suit their needs. They want a browser that can browse the web and will keep them safe. IE6 isn't the safest browser in the world, but IE7 will definitely be safe. IE will continue to be the dominating web browser because A.) companies will use it because it's easier to use the built-in browser, and it should be just as safe as Firefox B.) Casual users don't need anything more.
I think the future will have IE and Firefox co-existing (and Opera!) because IE is what the normal people will use and Firefox/Opera will be what the expert web-users use. It's the same reason most people still use Windows Media Player. I use Winamp because of plugins/customization, but most people just want to use what works, and since they don't want any more functionality than that, they have no reason to change.
Here you go:r table_firefox
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/browsers/po
BTW, when I need Linux, I run Puppy Linux from a CDROM at work - friggen clueless IT folks in some places...
Oh well, what the hell...