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After 100M IE7 Downloads, Firefox Still Gaining

Kelson writes "Internet Explorer 7 hit the 100 million download mark last week. Yet in the three months it's been available, Firefox's market share has continued to grow. InformationWeek reports that nearly all of IE7's growth has been upgrades from IE6. People don't seem to be switching back to IE in significant numbers, prompting analysts to wonder: has Microsoft finally met its match?"

16 of 425 comments (clear)

  1. Re:If you're like me by omeg · · Score: 4, Informative

    True. Or you just want to check to see for yourself whether it really fixes some of those nasty CSS problems. There are plenty of reasons for installing IE7, but none of them imply that you will also be actually using it. Site statistics will have to assess whether IE7 is really being used a lot, not the amount of downloads.

  2. IE7 on Linux: get it while it's hot by adnonsense · · Score: 4, Informative

    At least one of those downloads was by my humble self and now graces my humble Ubuntu desktop, thanks to the excellent IEs 4 Linux package.

    (Disclaimer: I do web dev work and need it for testing purposes. And I feel all dirty and sordid with every time I fire it up).

  3. Indeed I do by rpjs · · Score: 2, Informative

    Use IE on the sites I develop, but that usage is only hitting the internal dev server, and won't appear in any site stats. I certainly don't use IE for going anywhere else, unless the site breaks in Firefox, and even then I use IETab.

  4. Re:Well being that it is part of windows upgrade.. by cyxxon · · Score: 3, Informative

    Don't forget that a lot of companies don't just install Windows upgrades because MS releases them. They undergo rigid inhouse testing and then later are deployed from their own update servers, so they would not be counted as donwloads from Microsoft anyway.

    Also, IE7 is (at the moment, fix upcoming in SAPGui release 20 IIRC) incompatible with SAP software, so any admin worth his salt will block this update if the company also uses SAP software (which I bet are quite a lot of desktops). And this problem is AFAIK a blunder by SAP, saying things like "uh, nobody gave us IE7 early enough, how were we supposed to fix our code".

  5. Re:A fair test? by blowdart · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually WU downloads an installer which then says "There's an update available to Internet Explorer. Do you wish to install it?" It's not a silent, in the background install like you seem to suggest, the user must choose to let it update. Of course users do blindly click yes...

  6. Two reasons by ReallyEvilCanine · · Score: 3, Informative
    1) You're logged in as a restricted user and only the Admin can give the update installation the go-ahead
    2) Your admin installed the IE7 Blocker Toolkit for corporate administrators ( http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=65788&siteI d=3&oId=2100-7350-6098500&ontId=1009&lop=nl.ex)

    We warned our customers' admins about this back in August but they ignored us... until October 18th. Then they started submitting Prio-1 tickets, the fuckwits.

  7. Re:How well would FF do if *it* forced itself out? by lukas84 · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's a really complicated way to manage this for 35 machines.

    I would suggest you to use WSUS to manage your Windows Updates. If that's too much for you, you can also use the IE 7 Blocker Toolkit.

    Administrating a windows network requires just as much technical competency as does administrating a linux, solaris, mac or whatever network.

  8. Re:ie tabbed browsing by Calinous · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why did they mod you funny?
          While using an antivirus and a spyware program is good (along with a firewall and so on), you should take into account that antivirus programs offer their security with delays. Between the start of an attack until the moment all the updates are on the system, usually more than a day occurs.
          And you should take into account that IE has open holes (Firefox probably has some too) that can be attacked by any totally new virus

  9. Re:Popularity by bunratty · · Score: 2, Informative
    Probably about as well as they have done in the past:
    For a total 284 days in 2006 (or more than nine months out of the year), exploit code for known, unpatched critical flaws in pre-IE7 versions of the browser was publicly available on the Internet... In contrast, Internet Explorer's closest competitor in terms of market share -- Mozilla's Firefox browser -- experienced a single period lasting just nine days last year in which exploit code for a serious security hole was posted online before Mozilla shipped a patch to remedy the problem.
    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  10. Re:A fair test? by J0nne · · Score: 2, Informative

    It *is* flagged as a little more. When you update to IE7, you have to run through a complete wizard, complete with genuine advantage check (IIRC).

  11. Re:If you're like me by MMMDI · · Score: 4, Informative

    I run two different sites, both of which are far from being tech-oriented - one is a music site, and the other is a movie review site. The stats on both sites consistently show an increase in FF usage from month to month. I know I don't bring in a fraction of the hits that Google and the other "major" sites do, but if this is any indication...

    Thus far this month, we're looking at the following:
    MMMDI
    1,867,564 hits
    64.1% IE / 29.6% FF / 1.9% Safari (the big three)

    MvMMDI
    186,191 hits (yes, this site is still relatively new and unestablished)
    59.9% IE / 34.5% FF / 2.1% Safari (the big three)

  12. Re:For me.... by quantum+bit · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hehe as a non pro XP user i had noticed too that logging in as an unprivileged user does not notify you of any updates. I'm really constantly amazed about the lag between windows and the other OSes out there, when astroturfing and online debates stop, and real work needs to get done. Hope vista is way better, for you vista users.

    I don't use XP a lot but do maintain a network of them at work. It makes sense though, why notify a user of updates that said user won't be able to install anyway? (for lack of admin rights)

    There is a group policy option that allows the update service to display updates to normal users (and elevate privileges for the install). I don't know if the home version of XP includes the group policy editor, but even if it doesn't the option should be able to be enabled via a registry edit.

  13. Active usage stats by suv4x4 · · Score: 2, Informative

    TheCounter gets a very good sample of the Internet userbase, so instead of arguing like retarded kids what "X downloads for IE and Y downloads for Firefox means" we can see what people USE:

    http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2007/January/brows er.php

    19% for IE7, 11% for Firefox. End of story.

    "But IE is preinstalled, but Automatic Updates, but, but."

    Yea, we know. And? Firefox doesn't need skewed stats, nor it needs lame excuses. All of you, grow up :P

  14. Re:Both IE *AND* Firefox upgrade automatically by compro01 · · Score: 2, Informative

    firefox 1.5.0.x doesn't force an upgrade to 2.0, which would be comparable to going from IE6 to IE7.

    firefox does push point updates though, as does IE.

    --
    upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
  15. Re:For me.... by DittoBox · · Score: 2, Informative

    Put this on your DC, it works great. With the right setup and administration you can save lots of internet/network bandwidth by serving updates off the DC instead of off the real Windows Update. You can also choose to not deploy updates, if they conflict with software or are problematic in other ways.

    http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/updat eservices/default.mspx

    --
    Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
  16. Re:For me.... by neongrau · · Score: 2, Informative

    an ending ";" is never required. it's a separator telling the rendering engine that the definition ended and the following is a new one. when there are no declarations following, it's neither needed nor required. see the specs. even on w3c.org they omit them. saves a byte of bandwidth everywhere ;)