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Firefox Usage Near 25% In Europe
PARENA writes "French researcher Xiti claims that Mozilla Firefox keeps winning terrain in Europe. 24.1% of Internet users in Europe use Firefox. Slovenia (44.5%), Finland (41.3%), Croatia (36.5%), and Germany (36.2%) lead the way, followed by a group of mostly Eastern European countries. Remarkably, The Netherlands is only at 13.3%, right before Andorra. Oceania maintains a slight lead over Europe, at 24.8%; the rest of the world trails at 11.9% to 15.1%."
.... In 3 - 2 - 1....
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Wasn't the Amiga also popular in Europe at some point? Nothing wrong with the Amiga, just pointing out that you can't always use Europe as a gauge for success. ;-)
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Wouldn't it be more useful to look at the stats for Internet Explorer than those for Firefox? I'm sure many Europeans use Opera or Safari, besides just Firefox?
:)
Got to give props to the Firefox guys though. They're getting there
I'm getting around 82% firefox, 16% IE.
OS platforms are 88% windows, 9% Mac, and nearly 3% Linux.
Are other people seeing this?
I'm impressed with Slovenia and Finland at over 40% penetration. Though they're relatively small countries population wise, the Firefox teams have really made a substantial impact there. These successes are what it really takes for people to notice Firefox in the mainstream. 40% probably puts them near the share Internet Explorer has locally which is definitely a great step. The article also shows Australia at 25% which is awesome. Great numbers all around, keep up the great work.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
1. It mentions 96,000+ web sites were monitored for the purpose of determining this. What were they? Were they evenly distributed by raw population? By internet-using population?
2. Does this survey make any attempt to take into account 'individual PC users' vs. 'internet cafe' users? i.e. Is this percentage of COMPUTERS or percentage of USERS? (Or, more likely, percentage of individual web hits?)
I can't find any technical details on how this survey was conducted, other than the slight mention of number of websites involved.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
If you didn't notice...
Whats Oceania? I thought it was a made-up supernation from Orwell's 1984.
Firefox is fast becoming newspeak for "web browser".
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Stats in general can be misleading, but I would agree that IE stats would be more useful. I'd love to see a time comparison chart between the popularity of Firefox vs IE though. I'm betting that firefox is doing very well because of all the advertisement google is helping them with. Have you seen all those "Get Firefox with Google Toolbar" adds! Google will give you a whole dollar each time someone clicks on it and downloads firefox, with the toolbar, from your site. Its sweet, but with Apple having a bit of the market share out there, and all those Opera users, along with netscape and links/lynx (Love for text browsers!), and even Konqueror for those weird KDE fans, I bet that we've got 50% open source web browsing SOMEWHERE...
Support the source, Open Source! An entire site developed with OSS
Internet Explorer works decent enough for the average user. Outside of the US, I'm betting the internationalization support of Firefox is a good promoting factor. If you could have your native language be garbled based on very picky Internet Explorer language rules and parsing, or Firefox, which would you pick?
On a related note, I'd like to see a study as to how accurate translations are, too, when comparing FireFox (and others) to IE.
Remarkably, The Netherlands is only at 13.3%
I don't find that remarkable at all. I lived in the Netherlands for a few years, and one of the things that struck me was how Microsoft-centric the universities were. A huge percentage of the Computer Science students had never even tried an OS other than Windows! (I come from one of those sunny countries in the south of Europe, and that's where I attended university. There, the various flavours of Unix — mainly Linux of course — ruled and continue to rule inside the Computer Science department). Therefore it doesn't surprise me at all that the Dutch are still stuck in the yesteryear of Internet Explorer.
As time passed, I realised that part of the reason for the Dutch situation has to do with a certain spirit of conformity and of "trying not to distinguish yourself too much from your peers". Granted, it has its positive sides — like a fairly equalitarian society — but also downsides like this one.
You think a country full of people who don't care about an illegal war in Iraq, the abuse of our rights at the (blatant and unveiled!) hands of our president, or any apparent concern for the finer points of logic and reasoning would actually give a crap about what browser they use?
Their computers come with Internet Explorer, and it's good enough. They're not going to embrace Firefox just for the sake of it, because they're entirely apathetic about almost everything to begin with.
We Americans haven't had to fight for anything or even really compete. Students don't have to learn, and people readily embrace each other when a Wikipedia link makes them think they're experts on legal and business processes (*cough*implied warranties*cough*). Complacency explains a lot, including the relatively slower uptake of Firefox.
First IE slowly being replaced by superior FF.
Then Open Office (or less bloated equivalents like Abiword) will come and kick out Word and al from grandma computers. Then average Joe will not be able to watch his movies on Vista and noone will have a copy of XP handy. So his 12-year old will install Ubuntu.
And wmv and other non-open formats will die, too. People are getting burned by DRM tricks and lock-ins.
Well... I like to dream.
DEAR SIR,
HAVING CONSULTED WITH MY ESTEEMED COLLEAGUES, I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO REQUEST FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE TO INCREASE FIREFOX USAGE 45,000,000% (FORTY-FIVE MILLION PERCENT). THE ABOVE INCREASE WILL TAKE OVER FIVE (5) YEARS.
I ASSURE YOU THAT THIS INCREASE IS RISK FREE ON ALL SIDES.
PLEASE REPLY URGENTLY.
BEST REGARDS,
DR. ABRAHAM UMBABWE
I know there are some different opinions about how many continents there are and what they're called. But most Americans consider Australia to be its own continent, and count all of the other islands as part of Asia. In fact, in American questionnaires about race, you will see the category "Asian/Pacific Islander".
More technically educated users are more likely to choose Firefox, as less technically educated users can only use what they are spoon fed.
If you look at the map in TFA, it is almost more-or-less a map of how much countries spend on equipping their schools properly and providing decent technical skills to their population. These countries will run ahead within the IT industry of Europe. Sadly my nation (UK) will probably not be one of them.
My little Linux and tech blog
You think people who care about an illegal war in Iraq, the abuse of our rights at the (blatant and unveiled!) hands of our president, or any apparent concern for the finer points of logic and reasoning would actually give a crap about what browser they use?
How do you figure the US is lagging behind?
Look at the guys map, South America, and surprisingly - Asia, seem to have the slowest uptake.
The map doesn't have US specifically, but go ahead and assume that North America means USA only. We don't pay much attention to mexico or canada either.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
TBH, I hadn't noticed until yesterday that I was using Konqueror. It really had not occurred to me to check.
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
http://www.google.com/trends?q=firefox,internet+ex plorer,+safari,+opera&date=all&geo=all&ctab=0&sa=N /
It's not a trolling post just because you don't like it or because you don't understand it.
Complacency and apathy is exactly the sort of reason why Microsoft still commands the desktop and why people aren't switching over to superior products like Firefox. It's also the reason why alternative fuels are struggling to take off (fossil fuels are still profitable for producers and cheap for consumers) and why it takes near-catastrophe for the United States to enact appropriate social and environmental policy.
Since I am an American, you can take your indignation at my criticism and shove it.
You're forgetting Linux, OS X, and Tux.
Fornication ends in N.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Don't look at the title bar much? :)
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Could it have anything to do with how easy it is to get Firefox in your local language?
Correct my North-American egocentrism, but aren't most of the countries listed predominantly non-English speaking?
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
If you look at the number of teams to population size for Software Freedom Day (which often involves people handing out CDs with Firefox and other free software) you'll see some correlation to these usage stats.
For example, compare the USA (24 teams) with Australia (19 teams). When you consider that the US population is over ten times bigger than Australia's population (298,444,215 vs 20,264,082), is it any wonder that Software Freedom Day is more effective in "Oceania" than it is in the US?
Not to mention the cultural differences in accepting software from random people on the street in the US, Europe and Australia.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Well, mod the above post +1 Mods on crack. He's totally right; far too many of my fellow Americans are apathetic towards pretty much everything. Sure, we've probably got more sympathetic Americans than there are citizens in several European countries, but the majority of us here in the US are depressingly apathetic.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
+1 Wishful thinking
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
With any luck, future generations will have no memory of that horrible, horrible abmoniation called Internet Explorer.
In 2101, war was not beginning...
Clerk: (looks at sheet, decides on changes)
Clerk: Internet 2.8.01 reporting bb explorenet doubleplusungood refs unperson rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling
Actually I think not only that's not the case...IE might have upper hand when it comes to "internationalization" support. And right at the start...because what could Firefox/Opera possibly mean for non-English speaker?
One that hath name thou can not otter
Their computers come with Internet Explorer, and it's good enough. They're not going to embrace Firefox just for the sake of it, because they're entirely apathetic about almost everything to begin with.
I'm an American computer geek, and I can't figure out why anyone (geek or civilian) would embrace Firefox. I don't think Firefox has many advantages over IE anyway. I use Opera, and when on a lab computer with Firefox/IE I can't tell a difference in performance between the two...
"I told you a million times not to exaggerate!"
Why do the more rabid users of Firefox/Linux/etc always look down upon the people who use IE/Windows/etc?
For the same reasons that your fellow music fans look down on you for listening to the Beegees. For the same reasons that people who drive a Toyota Prius feel better about their own morality when they see you in your Hummer. For the same reasons that your story about getting a great deal at Walmart says things, to them, about you, but not so much about your thrifty savvy.
I'm not mad at you for using IE. It's a comfort to me, in fact, that the great unwashed exists, because it makes my impeccable standards-compliant hygiene worth all the gruesome effort.
Also, that shirt? Very chic, in a Ricky Bobby sort of way. If I were you, I wouldn't give a damn what Stacy and Clinton have to say about it.
W(here)TF is Turkey? They might have problems with censorship and stuff, but they're part of Eastern Europe... And these guys already got many comments about Turkey being part of Europe.
I know Seible is owned by Oracle now, but not for that long.
Where I work, we use a web-based Seible product called crmondemand. It will only work correctly with MSIE. The Firefox MSIE plug-in doesn't help.
Because Microsoft is evil and Americans are flawless, of course. We must find a way to reconcile the two! The numbers must be lying!
:)
Incidentally, I mainly replied to smile at your division of people into geeks v. civilians.
Ok, absolutely shameless of me to post this here, but this site I maintain has Firefox at 64% (and IE at 31%). Nothing to do with Europe whatsoever. Sorry.p
http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/website_stats.ph
Note: it's a total Windows power user app too. That partially explains it.
Eric
The reason it works well enough for the average user is that we developers make it work by piling on hacks and generally jankie code. I'm fat because I eat and I eat because I'm fat.
I just wish there was a way to break the vicious cycle of IE usage quicker.
We're sick of msft funding bogus lawsuits, lying to the US-DOJ, openly defying the EU, filing bogus patents, faking TCO studies, and faking benchmarks. We're sick of msft creating fake "think tanks" like AdTI, and using fake journalists like Enderle. We're sick of the astroturfing, and letters from dead people campaigns. We are not happy about msft stacking the deck with msft employees in the OOXML approval process.
Need I go on?
There was a time when the very real fear that if Microsoft achieve total dominance on the client that they could (and would) leverage that influence to the server by coupling new extension that only work with IE/IIS combination. The WWW would become the WMW :(
So this increasing market share of Firefox is good news. The threat of a single client achieving complete dominance is past now, I believe - a bullet dodged.
As an aside. I have a customer that was concerned about this several years ago and she wanted to do her part so she requested a special mod to her shopping cart that recognizes the browser and gives a "Mozilla Users Discount" for the kindred users.
Interesting to see that it still works Sam McGees Hot Sauce"
In the graph, they use , for the decimal place, and . for the decimal place in the text...MAKE UP YOUR MIND, OR I'LL CRY!
I thought Canada was a state...
Firefox is a web browser. Most people, Americans or not, have more important things to worry about in their lives, even if they want to become social activists. To most people, choosing a web browser for ideological reasons is like choosing a brand of peanut butter for ideological reasons--it's possible but no one really cares enough to do it. I guess it turns out more people care about web browsers than peanut butter.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Iceweasel kicks its ass any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You forgot that the only people that use open source software like Firefox are hippies and communists.
And you forgot to leave out: The US is obviously the only place on earth where firefox means you're far superior than anyone else, and if you run it, it gives you the God-given gift to know all there is to know, and treat everyone else as an ignorant American. Way to stand up for your country and make yourself look even more ignorant.
Because you use a different browser, obviously means that you can talk bad about everyone in your own country as if you're the only one that knows anything at all.
WAY TO MAKE A STATEMENT!!! WOOHOO! YOU ARE OFFICIALLY COOL!!!!!!!
Everyone, please..applaud him for his insatiable insight and delicious banter, for he is the almighty anti-American firefox user!!
Great speech. Shouldn't you be somewhere picketting?
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
I agree. Because 10 of the 100 total PC's in Herzoswania are firefox doesn't mean that 90 of them are ignorant scum that don't know anything. It's more along the lines of those who can actually afford them, know quite a bit about computers and have insight toward new software and installing new programs.
In the US, millions have computers, whether they know much about them or not. It's not that they're so ignorant that they can't feed themselves or are oblivious to the world around them, but more along the lines of buying a computer for their kids to do school work on, or even companies buying PC's with windows and not allowing software that cannot be used without technical support.
When you start realizing how many people buy them for home use, rather than true love for computers and knowledge, the numbers add up.
My brother was one of those pathetic (as he describes) people who went to war and worked on electronic systems in F18's and EA6B's. He came home and played games on his computer, used IE and went back to work to design missile troubleshooting software, and later developed a compressed version of a type of guidance board for some rediculous aircraft equipment. He again came home to his family and eventually went to work at Siemens to engineer ultrasound equipment.
BUT, because he's American and doesn't use firefox, he's obviously ignorant.
I think that America is so ignorant because we have so many people revolving around the media, rather than realizing what's right. Whether something is right or wrong doesn't matter as long as it supports their political wing. But, that's my theory.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
I find it remarkable that 13.3% is considered "low."
What kind of uninformed idiot are you? Haven't you heard of the horrid mistreatment of peanut plants going on? Why aren't you getting involved?
You need to go to your local PETP meeting to learn of the injustice, and stop living in ignorance.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Where do you get the impression that I prefer or even *use* Firefox? (I don't.)
And I think you're not so clear on what "ignorant" means...but thanks for illustrating the exact cause-and-effect disjoint I mentioned in my first post. Lack of interest in choice is what we like to call an "effect," not a "cause." Belief that having an interest and choice requires you to be an activist or an ideologue is what we call a "false dilemma."
Congratulations for being a case study. Bonus points if you're not American.
Then IE must be used by the remaining crowed of rednecks, hicks and fascists?
Indeed. I never got that really. I understand Microsoft's total domination in other markets: making a Direct X game is so much easier than open GL. C# and especially VB.NET are an order of magnitude easier to learn than alternatives. SQL Server (not really dominating, but has a subtential market share in OLAP and such) is fully GUI based, and has the easiest OLAP and ETL systems to use that I've ever heard of.
Then you have Internet Explorer. Coding "IE-only" is harder, by far, than coding crossbrowser Firefox/Opera, by a factor of 10 (you can add Safari to the mix if you don't try to do anything too fancy in javascript, where a few bugs and weird behaviors start showing). As soon as IE's market share goes low enough, you'll see "W3C compliant only" sites popping up fast enough. I'm impressed the revolt didn't happen sooner: for many other microsoft product, when something screws up on the developer site, you see hundreds of posts piling up on MS blogs...
You proved your own case study. You proved your own arrogance and superiority to support your own cause and try to prove a point, that showed your OWN colors. YOU are the scum you talk about. YOU are better than everyone else because you believe that you're smarter. Do you think that people look up to you when you speak about the subjects that you do? Your philosophy and REDICULOUS outlook makes ME look bad? YOU compared an entire country to ignorance because of a choice in a browser and I'm the one who's ignorant?
Stay behind your keyboard and come up with conspiracy theories and conjure words of hate against the MAN and corporate world.
ROCK ON killer! You're SUPERIOR to all of us! I'm ignorant and you're cool. I really wish I wouldn't have grown up SO stupid and American. I wish my government wouldn't have made me SO stupid. I wish I COULD BE LIKE YOU!!! THEN, and ONLY then, would I be able to fight the man and all the other ignorant Americans around me. I really wish I was DEAD!
Thanks for your insight, I must go read my children a bed-time story and teach them to grow up and get an education like Mr. Mattucus and fight the man for the cause of Justice and anti-american ignorance.
Let me guess, you're in college and know everything... right?
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
People in Finland aren't activists or shills. They tried Firefox and liked it. Just like in my house, there are people who like Jif and people who like Skippy. They know their preference, but they won't be starting blogs or writing sixteen-page treatises on it. The children made a choice and can indicate a preference.
People in the US on the whole simply don't care as much. I'm not saying that they should give a crap about web browsers; but if they don't care about more important things, why should they be expected to care about less important ones?
Take firefox/opera/ie/netscape and put one on a computer, create a start point to it and label it "internet" and tell the owner that there is a new version of "program they used before" and i would imagine a large percentage would still be able to surf the web.
Actually, there is a difference in performance.
When I used IE in college, all the windows would freeze if I opened more than 9 at one go, whereas opening 10-15 firefox tabs didn't affect the computer (unless you count then firefox's compressing the tab name).
Then again, my college could just be cheap with their computers, but Firefox was much better than IE, comparably to the newly-released Safari then, and did wonders for productivity.
1 + 1 = 3?
No they are most certainly not. They are just people who know how to use a computer. They recognize that Firefox IS better, personally I prefer it because of it's numerous add-ons. If you want an example, my father, one of the most conservative men you will ever meet has one machine running Linux (SUSE) and another running XP, but with Firefox.
"The quickest way to end a war is to lose it" -Orwell
New Zealand is Australia's Canada.
I am not sure if any Mozilla family browser was ever faster than IE and Opera. Performance was never the reason why Firefox is superior. It is more usable, extensible, has a better safety record and is cross-platform and open source. Opera has most of these advantages except extensibility. My Firefox has the least performance of them all perhaps because I loaded it up with extensions. But the extensions make me very productive.
Your post is so blatantly and hideously wrong. Many fascists use Safari as their primary browser.
I agree with you. Trying to connect this to apathy about the war in Iraq and the threats to our civil liberties, however, implies that Firefox is a social or ideological cause instead of a product.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
It's used so much there because of all the p2p and torrent plugins available...makes it easier for them to pirate all their shit.
No, this being Slashdot, it normally ends in a Kleenex.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Ignorant is not a synonym for apathetic. You keep throwing around "ignorant" but nobody said it once until you brought your indignant tirade here. "Fighting the man" also has fuck-all to do with anything mentioned here, nor does stupidity of Americans or conspiracy theories. You're talking out your ass based on emotion and not even a hint of logic or reasoning and digging a bigger and bigger hole.
I know, I know. It's hard when you fail at logic while trying to make a point, but maybe you should choose your battles more carefully. I don't recall talking about scum at any point, but please feel free to go on being insulted about your stupidity, ignorance, and newfound "scum" status that you've piled upon yourself. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will wonder why you've decided that I'm some sort of hippie, conspiracy wingnut student (again pulled from thin air like everything else you've said). I'll happily admit to being superior when faced with obtuse fools.
PS. It's "ridiculous" with an I.
It was not my intent to connect the two. Perhaps that isn't as clear as I'd hoped it would be.
Instead, it was merely a threshold comparison. If people don't care about much larger and more pressing issues (e.g. the war, civil liberties, our reprehensible education system), then something several orders of magnitude more trivial would naturally be at least as unimportant and should be expected to be met with the same (or greater) level of apathy.
How the hell did you get past the lameness filter?!
Don't bother. This is just another attempt by the Eurocentrics to attack Americans. You know with 90% of the countries in Europe being the size of an American State, population-wise they would rather just attack the stretch of the population rather than compare a European country to, say, the Northeast, or the midwest, or New York State. Nope it is really just about making themselves feel better about themselves. You know, Two world wars and countless bloody conflicts, they have a lot of European guilt they need to offshoot. Not that the American President is making it any harder for them.
These are the same people who will yell at an American Slashdotter for making an American reference, and remind them that there is more to the world than the United States but will also make generalizations about Americans based on what the BBC and some pissed off ex-communist tells them.
I think your main problem is acting as if war and web browsers are both the same kind of important, even if they're important in different degrees. Clearly, that's bonkers. People care more about their choice of music and peanut butter than about the Iraq war because they're apathetic about social and political issues, not because they're apathetic about absolutely everything in the world. Apathy about web browsers is more like not caring about brands of peanut butter than it is like not caring about Iraq.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Apathy is apathy. Whether it is peanut butter or brands of cars or social policy, people in this country simply do not care as much as those in other countries (at least as far as the five I've lived in). It's not about activism in the least; it's merely about having a preference or opinion. Americans on the whole are notorious for accepting what's fed to them and not really questioning or being inquisitive, and that's driven by a sense of complacency. Life is good, so it doesn't matter.
The US has been institutionally stable for two centuries, hasn't fought a war on home soil in over 140 years, and hasn't had any serious economic scare since the 1930s. Consumer protection laws and regulatory oversight are quite good (try 1950s France for comparison), no matter how much complaining happens. Those are all good things, but they do produce a system where people have very little reason to care about anything.
Again, I'm not saying anyone *should* care. I'm simply saying that they don't, and most of the rest of the world does (from web browsers to policy issues). Europeans tend to be more informed on political matters and to be more critical of spoonfed "news"--in my undergraduate days, I participated in conducting a study which was designed to test previous claims of this nature which found that older studies making this claim were not unsound, and our results corroborated that tendency.
i'd say there is probablly a lot more people who can't/won't use firefox (draconion internal restrctions, lack of trust, lack of knowlage how to install stuff) than you can't/won't use IE. I bet most firefox users either have or can find a windows box and if the choice is between getting what you want with IE and not getting it at all many many of them will fire up IE. This is especially true with the likes of banks and ecommerce sites who you are already trusting rather a lot.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I don't find that remarkable at all. I lived in the Netherlands for a few years, and one of the things that struck me was how Microsoft-centric the universities were.
Isn't marijuana legal, or at least decriminalized in The Netherlands? That would be a plausible explanation of that statement.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
As groovy as it is for anything to compete successfully with Microsoft, have to say I've been most disappointed with how Firefox performs on my Mac. Just eats the hell out my CPU. I'm finding Omniweb to be the next great thing. Safari continues to be pretty decent, too. I wonder when Google will release a browser? [Remember Mosaic? Remember Netscape? Remember 2400 baud modems and local dialup BBSes?. . .]
We are not whales--and this constitutes one great theme underscoring our sex life. --h. murakami
At a site I maintain--not huge traffic by any means, largely university students+faculty from across the US--the stats for the past 2 months are roughly:
Firefox: 20%
IE: 70%
Safari: 5%
others: ~5% (we still get Netscape 4 users in decent numbers......)
Of the IE numbers, about 35% over the past two months are using IE7, and that's going up a lot every day.
Also, FWIW, 5% of our visitors are dialup (as reported by Google Analytics)
I guess you want to tell all the Veterans in America that they've never had to fight for anything. Tell the dead Americans buried by the thousands in Normandy that they never had to fight for anything. You need to stop getting your "truth" from Left-Wing Websites.
That must break poor PPK's heart.
> How do you figure the US is lagging behind?
Exactly! The US never lags behind! It is leading!
Leading in upholding American values and fighting communism by not defecting away from Internet Explorer.
Are you with us or against us?
I'll probably be modded down for this...
You mean like IE7's total interface redesign? Heck, even I have trouble navigating it when I have to help somebody else figure something out...
Waterloo University is also Microsoft-centric. But in a twist of irony, it seems the IT staff aren't, and so IE is completely broken on the lab machines (at least the engineering ones) to the point where most websites don't load and it's pretty much impossible to download anything. Firefox is the only browser that can really be used.
FWIW, when I browsed Microsoft's site to see what
was up with their new Silverfish
(or is it Silver Lite?), they gave me a choice of
downloading the IE plugin or the Firefox plugin...
.
- aqk
F U
It's nice but it's not _the_ measure I'd like to see grow. What I'd like to see is the sum of all standards-compatible browsers to grow. I'd include at least all Geckos, Operas, and KHTML/WebKit/WebCore browsers.
36%
Lies, damn lies, statistics...
I am running Firefox on Debian, but let me assure you, I am the only one as far as I can see.
And heck, I use opera. Ffox is too slow for what I expect from "internet expirience".
... I have no idea where did this survey dig those numbers.
Also I maintain three of the top 10 visited sites in Slovenia (mostly by teenagers) and the stats there are:
ie 70%, ffox 27%, opera 1.6%.
ie 6 50%, mozilla 37%, ie 7 9%, opera 1.5%
ie 6 60%, mozilla 29%, ie 7 7%, opera 1.6%
So there
hmm. i actually did choose my peanut butter based on ideological reasons. i am opposed to foods with more than three or four ingredients. and as natural as possible. not for health reasons, rather for some misplaced neo-luddite fettish. so i eat laura scudders peanut butter. and smooth peanut butter is too mechanical and artificial and removed from its origins, so its only nutty peanut butter for me.
i broke up with a girlfriend once over her peanut butter choices: some sort of sickly smooth hydrogenated peanut shortening, like skippy or jif. ick.
"I like to wear big boy pants."
> I come from one of those sunny countries in the south of Europe, and that's where I attended university. There, the various
> flavours of Unix -- mainly Linux of course -- ruled and continue to rule inside the Computer Science department.
Let me add a data point to the contrary: Salamanca, Spain. Pretty much all windoze. The Linux installs in the CS department were crappy and insecure, and 80% of the physics students had never heard of LaTeX.
Not long ago spiegel.de, Germany's largest print magazine's website (also one of the most visited), reported that after work hours Firefox users are the overwhelming majority, and only during work hours, when most visitors visit the site from their corporate computers over which the IT depmt. has control, does MS IE have the lead.
Konqueror and Safari both use KHTML (although Apple has forked it and added some things KHTML still hasn't)
Safari only gives you a taste of what KDE has for Konqueror users. Missing items include split panes, sftp and other common features. Konqueror is the network transparency people have dreamed about for more than a decade.
Mozilla makes a good browser but it's not a great file manager.
IE is a bad joke.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Could it have anything to do with how easy it is to get Firefox in your local language? Correct my North-American egocentrism
A proper bigot believes there is no "internet" outside the English language. You get a cookie for realizing that free software is easier to localize and that local translators do a better job than McDon^H^H^H^H Microsoft.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Since there is no data in the article, this is from march Awstats of the most popular Macedonian website
blog.com.mk (339445 Unique visitors)
Sounds way to high for me, I'm running 2 Sites with about 6000 to 7500 Visits per day and another with about 2500-3500 Visits per day.
FireFox/Mozilla has 17.35 %
IE 6 has 30.82 %
IE 7 has 17.59 %
Google bot has 14.41 %
The rest is under 0.75 % with over 600 different user strings.
The pages are a Booking System for my state in Italy. So we get about 75 % traffic from Germany/Austria and 20% from Italy, the rest is from all over the world.
Nope. I don't see that.
Denmark and Netherlands are two of the most high IT countries in Europe, and they are both in the bottom. It seems more random really.
Most Dutch 'it-education' is really a course in Windows+MS-Office. 90% of teachers (from elementry to university level institutions) have never even heard of any alternatives or have any clue as to what an open standard is. Even a college-level CS education will most often does not include any teaching of the the basic concepts of open standards, free software or opensource development methodologies. We actually have academics praising Microsoft for innovation ... in market approach and marketing. There are some activities in the Netherlands trying to change all this but is is slow going.
Greetings from Amsterdam,
Arjen
I'm not sure why adoption in US is so low, but looking at the countries with high adoption rates in Europe, Finland, Poland, Germany, Estonia and even Ireland have large IT sectors relative to the userbase. This could mean that more nieces, sons, sisters et al are setting up their less clueful uncle's, parent's, brother's machines with the resulting prejudice's of the technical community in favour of quality and security being given free rein on what would, without their intervention, be "as supplied" OEM machines.
"Linux is for noobs"-The new MS fud strategy
I was wondering why exactly this happened in our country.This is the country closely tied to Microsoft for many years.Average people don't even know there is alternative to Windows OS. We are probably the most "Windows Desktop conservative" country in the world. Most of the people don't know there is alternative to Windows! I'm sure this wide adoption has lot to do with good support from Mozilla team in our country http://mozilla.lugos.si/ and Firefox supporters trying to explain benefits of Firefox from early beginnings.
:)) Perhaps ODF? Maybe OS war ? I was wondering if this has anything to do with R.Stallman visiting Slovenia and Croatia http://www.lugos.si/lugos/rms2000/pic/RMS-2000-10- 14/ looks very suspicious :))) Maybe we need Linus Torvalds now to help us win OS war or maybe Mark Suttleworth he seems more like a desktop guy :))) Anyway thanks to Mozilla team and to all Firefox and OSS fans in our country.
So in a way we won but war is not over YET. There is still 58% of computers without Firefox around.The good thing is this percentage can't be ignored from web developers any more. There is almost no Firefox incompatible web pages. Next "war" please ??...
We use web-based Siebel 7 at work and it works fine with FF+ietab.
Probably Windows-centered, because some Dutch CS professor said "Linux is obsolete."
Just kidding.
What the heck? Equalitarian? No distinguishing from peers? In what part of Holland have you been living??
I would explain the 13.3% with the wide-spread use of Internet. Every noob I know surfs the Internet regularly, and hardly any of them care about technology. They just see computers and the Internet as a means to something else and are happy with what works (and the difference FF : IE is not that big). Also note that MSN is by far the superior IM here Short article on MSN usage in The Netherlands [smartmobs.com]. There is no anti-Microsoft feeling here, including universities, which indeed are highly Microsoft dependent. A lot of IT-students have never even heard of OpenOffice. Nothing will change with Vista even though MS screwed it up. Personally, I'm praying for ReactOS.
Although Thomas Siebel [sic] might well have German ancestry (I myself, being German, have relatives bearing the name, though not the wealth...), he and his company are American.
Even if IE is crumbling, it's still big enough to hurt. Even 25% is still enough that a website would be stupid to block IE users at the door.
And as long as we can't just block IE users at the door, it makes it very hard to show you any of the cool stuff we might have done, had the Internet not been so crippled.
However, I will point to AJAX -- if Microsoft had its way, this would not have worked, or would have been IE-only. If you understand what's going on under the hood (CSS, the DOM, etc), you will understand that AJAX works in spite of the IE monopoly. It's not that MS didn't try to kill things like AJAX, it's that they tried and failed, largely due to the existence of things like Firefox.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
At least one major Dutch bank outsource's its IT support and all desktops are locked down with the supported configuration only. Even different versions of IE are a major issue. On the other hand, a major German bank had no issues with Firefox and/or Opera. I believe they even had a deployable build of Firefox (also used for Internet banking support). That German bank also seems more generally friendly towards open source at the back end too.
My (Dutch) university was entirely SunOS back in the day, but after the introduction of Solaris, Windows started gaining ground, and by the time I left, many younger students only used the Windows machines and didn't know anything about unix. It was really sad to see that shift happen.
Netherland is high on the use of IT and broadband connectivity, but not nearly so much on education. The last 25 years have seen nothing but budget cut after bad reorganisation. We really should and could have a much better education system, and I was fortunate to go to a university that was literally loaded with money (each CS student almost had a sparc station of their own during mid '90s), but on some other universities, CS students had to make do with pretty old PCs.
For several years, one of the major banks in NL caused all kinds of grief to people using Anything But Internet Explorer (tm) to try and access their on-line banking website. Some months it would work only in konqueror, some months only in firefox, sometimes only when we flushed the cache, and sometimes the only recourse was to change the identification string to act as if we're using Internet Explorer. Then everything works fine :-) despite it's still gecko and not really IE rendering the html...
:-)
See this for example: (in dutch, and from 2003) http://www.girotel4all.nl/nieuws.php, and http://www.xs4all.nl/~koospol/nl/gto/index.html.
BTW, at this moment their (new) product works fine in firefox (well, iceweasel) on Debian.
So, maybe the low uptake of firefox means people have once set their identification string to "IE" in 2002-2003 and never changed it back. Well, it's AN explanation at least, I didn't say it was a good explanation
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
I care because for the most part, people do not use IE/Windows out of choice, they use it by default, even when there are better alternatives available.
I care because enough people do this that IE/Windows become a defacto standard. Before Firefox started gaining ground, many websites were coded to IE, not to standards -- and IE broke the standards. This affected me directly, because when I was using Mozilla (and early Phoenix builds, which was later renamed to Firefox), I would often run into websites designed only for IE, which would not work properly on other browsers, even when they followed the standards, assuming they let me in the door in the first place.
There are still entirely too many websites, even non-ActiveX ones, which will use browser detection and block you at the door if you're not using IE.
So, if you use IE, you're directly responsible for parts of the Web sucking for Firefox users, and that is one reason I look down on you.
Even now, websites designed for standards, which work flawlessly in Firefox, Opera, Safari, Konqueror, and many other browsers, continue to fail in IE, because IE does not support the standards properly. But since so many use IE, the standard user response is, "This website is broken." The standard way to deal with this is to spend several times as long developing your website (or web app) in order to ensure that it also works on IE.
Go talk to any serious web developer about the problems of supporting IE. When they tell you, understand that they are not exaggerating at all. It really is at least that bad. And that's just with existing standards; IE has been the most resistant when it comes to supporting actual new standards. (Adding their own does not count; Microsoft does not (or should not) dictate Web standards, that's what the w3c is for.
(And if they are using a toolkit, like Dojo or Google Web Toolkit, that just means the toolkit is doing the work for them. It also means that a very large portion of that toolkit had to be written to fix the problems Microsoft introduces with IE.)
Windows is another problem for another rant. But let me just give you one: Anti-virus software would not have to exist, were it not for Windows. Also, hardware manufacturers tend to write their drivers for Windows only, meaning Windows gets the credit for working on just about any hardware, without having to do any of the work. It also means that they tend to not release specifications, meaning Linux has to reverse-engineer these things.
So, you, as a Windows user, are directly contributing to my problems -- things like my wireless card not working, and the difficulty of finding a wireless card known to work with Linux.
That is why we look down on you. You are making the computing world a hell for anyone who doesn't make the same choices you do (Windows/IE). Microsoft may have made Windows/IE hell to work with, but you, without even realizing it, are making it more and more difficult to choose anything else.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I maintain a site oriented at the UK design industry and have the unsuprising figures:
IE 65%
FireFox 16%
Safari 10%
The rest is bots with various RSS agents & aggregators being well represented. (The site has an active RSS feed plus some less active feeds)
On the other hand a site for UK hotels gets:
IE 76%
FF 12%
AOL 2%
Safari 2%
Opera 2%
People in Finland aren't activists or shills.
;-)
(...)
People in the US on the whole simply don't care as much.
Given what's silently happening in future DVD formats, I'm wondering what Chinese users are going to prefer
Herve S.
Ehh, what?!
Compared to the rest of Europe unproportionally few significant computer programs are authored in Denmark and the Netherlands.
Also not many significant research papers in CS comes from those two countries.
I18N in Windows has poor quality, IMHO. At least Estonian translation is annoying. It's ok most of the time but that is "compensated" by some words that I think Windows translators have invented themselves. As a result I find that Windows is easier to understand in English. You might have noticed that I'm talking about Windows here, not specifically IE -- well, they are almost always bundled together and I wouldn't recommend anyone removing IE entirely.
Just FYI, I'm an active KDE user and have had it in Estonian for ages.
My personal blog, with average of about 1k unique visits per day, currently gets around 32% firefox users. Mind you, it is actually more of a lifestyle and food blog, nothing techy.
Most of my readers are from Malaysia though. You can check the broswer share here
geek page at KY speaks
This is a relatively new phenomenon. I have been working here in the Netherlands at a university for a decade now, and the pressure from the central office to get rid of non-Microsoft products has been steadily increasing. When I was a student, CS and science faculties still exclusively used sparcstations, and later added some linux pc's for students, and the social sciences mostly used Apple II machines. No Microsoft at all. In those days there was no central system administration, and the central office had relatively little power. Nowadays we still, more or less secretly, use some linux machines, because they are a necessity for research purposes, but central system administration only allows Dell pc's running Windows XP and logging on onto an NT domain, and we are not allowed to purchase computers ourselves with our own budgets. The causes are increased financial centralization following recent changes in education legislation (the universities are semi-public bodies), and nationwide cooperation of the universities in acquisition of computers and software licenses.
I have visited Italian colleagues at their university a number of times, and my impression is that these universities are as chaotic from a management point of view as ours used to be a decade ago, so I wouldn't think of them as being ahead of the curve and us being "stuck in yesteryear". International research university rankings also seem to confirm that the Netherlands beats the south of Europe in research. I wouldn't dare to claim that forcing everybody to use Dell machines running XP is progress, though.
An important factor that retards the adoption of open source in the general population is that advocating open source is often confused with anti-americanism. The socialist party's advocacy of open source is very counterproductive, and drives the majority of the population, and higher management in particular, towards Microsoft. Lobbying for open source is bad for your career.
"because what could Firefox/Opera possibly mean for non-English speaker?"
Opera is an Italian word (meaning "the work") that English adopted along with many other languages to describe a specific form of musical drama, just as many languages use the French word "ballet" for a type of dance. It will thus have precisely the same meaning for many non-English speakers as it does to you, and rather more meaning to an Italian.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
Here is the link to the original Spiegel article:, 00.html
g econtent?lp=de_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de% 2Fnetzwelt%2Ftech%2F0%2C1518%2C452899%2C00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/tech/0,1518,452899
Here is a link to read the *babelfish-translated* version of the above link:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pa
I would explain the 13.3% with the wide-spread use of Internet. Every noob I know surfs the Internet regularly, and hardly any of them care about technology.
I think this is a pretty plausible explanation. Broadband penetration in the Netherlands is very high, so a dispropotionally large part of the internet population is prone to have little IT experience.
I don't share your experiences regarding the microsoft-centered education. I was a Computer Science major at Twente Technical University and we were educated on microsoft and linux. The non-technical departemens are predominantly Microsoft though.
Also not many significant research papers in CS comes from those two countries.
LOL.. Please try an article search on Computer Science articles. I study CS in Denmark and might be biased on danish articles, but I know more major Dutch CS research than french and german.. combined!
Did you miss the Slashdot article where Denmark was number one IT country in the world? You are talking about the single most productive IT country in the world per capita..
Firefox usage varies a bit from country to country, but it varies much more among different demographics within each country.
In March I launched a new website, which got Dugg. Sixty-nine percent of my visitors had Firefox.
Then, as visitors started to arrive from other places, the percentage of Firefox users dropped and has kept dropping. It's now down to 29%.
Paid Q&A/Research
Having a monopoly can be very damaging, especially when it is used to create more monopolies.
A desktop dominance became a browser dominance with a single new bundled application. This nearly
extended into the server market as well, a lock in between IE and IIS was quite probable before
some competition was introduced saving both markets.
But despite the IE monopoly crumbling the browser is still being used and holding back innovation.
If I develop a site that doesn't work for 98% of its visitors that would be pretty bad, but
just to exclude 50% of visitors is bad enough, so I am still compelled to make my site work with IE.
Most modern browsers have support for the canvas tag, which allows dynamic drawing using primitives
such as lines and rectangles, and also provides input event handling. This is great for developing
interactive applications, and can in many instances replace Java and Flash applets. The best part is
that no plugins are required so canvas support is as ubiquitous as the browser being used - people
aren't left hoping that some controlling company will one day bless them with a plugin for their
platform.
IE 6 doesn't support the canvas tag, which is hardly surprising as it predates it by many years, but IE 7
doesn't support canvases either despite being released when all of the others did have support. So instead
of being content that my canvas applets are usable by pretty much anyone and getting on with creating more
of them I am spending a significant amount of time making Java versions so that IE users can use my site too.
I am not bitter, this is often the way things go with web development and just one example of how any
significant player in the browser market can cause problems for developers.
In many ways massive innovation will only come when competition is so fierce (and users so quick to
change browsers) that any browser not supporting every standard out there will soon be forgotten. I
hope this never happens because I don't want to run one of the bloated browsers that would ensue,
but I also hope that some steady progress is made with well thought out standards that are then
accurately implemented across the board in a timely manner.
One thing is for certain, IE 6 was not helping with innovation in the five (or was it more) years that
it stayed exactly the same. Now that a new release has been forced, others will hopefully follow, and
if they do a decent job of conforming to web standards then developers will finally get an opportunity
to make the most of these new technologies without alienating significant portions of their target
audience.
Well it's true, check my friends list :P
~= scwizard =~
Let me guess: UvA (University of Amsterdam)? I heard from people who work there in physics research that they had to beg the IT support for permission to install data acquisition boards with accompanying software (non-approved hardware, non-approved software)...
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
Some numbers for ANP, the national press agency in The Netherlands:
IE: 67,1%
FF: 13,5%
Safari: 16,7%
Then again, this is for ANP Photo, so Mac/Safari is probably higher than you'd expect.
So are Europeans more geeky oder just better informed than US peeps?
On se Internetz nobody noes your German.
I don't. We're only used to the idea of thinking that 5% is enormous against MS because we're used to looking at OS market share, which as we all know has long been one of the most extreme monopoly situations in any industry on the planet.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Have you seen all those "Get Firefox with Google Toolbar" adds!
Interesting. Search for 'browser' on Google and the top paid ad offers an upgrade to *IE7 with Google toolbar*, not Firefox.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Remarkably, The Netherlands is only at 13.3%
And Denmark is also suspiciously low. Could it be that XiTi made the very French mistake of determining browser use by country based on the ccTLD of the websites monitored instead of IP address of visitors? Firefox use in countries where the IT savvy part of the population is found on the Internet Anglophone most of the time would be seriously underestimated in that case.
Some of the most popular Dutch language websites - like tweakers.net - are also outside of the Dutch ccTLD, and many internet users have personal domains outside the Dutch language ccTLD because Dutch ccTLD domain name registration was limited to companies for a long time. The nu and tv ccTLD's are for instance used a lot. All possible factors that would lead to misclassification of IT savvy Dutchmen.
You wouldn't, by any chance, be talking about the Haagse Hogeschool? I know it's not a university by dutch terms, but perhaps you were actually referring to it.
Perfect is the enemy of done.
I use Lynx, you insolent clod!
Amnesty International
MSN is also the default IM app over here (Uruguay, South America) - to the extent that I'd say 99% of the local Internet users don't even know another one exists, we certainly never hear of AOL here (the few AOL users are ports from ICQ users), and Yahoo is seldom used.
On the other hand, CyberCafés are installing Firefox left and right - less sidebars and popups: more happy users and less maintenance. They still use software to wipe clean machines at night, but at least they last an entire day spyware-free now.
Universities too, though IE is still the default where I study, but Firefox is also installed at least.
Open Office hasn't gotten there yet, and while I haven't tried it in a while, a few friends are forced to use it at work and want MS Office back.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
The point of the authors claiming that Linux and the WWW are finish and swiss, wasn't that Europe is the single point were all cool stuff come from.
Their point was that we, euopeans, seem to like freedom and academic collaboration and apparently are more attracted to tools enabling collaboration (WWW) or project made with collaboration in mind (OSS) ; specially compared to the USA, where one may also find that cool stuff has originated, but apparently, the culture tends to put more emphasis on achievement, building big enterprise, and making good income : thus the typical american dream would be Microsoft, IBM, etc.
Whereas it's not a surprise that we appreciate more open source software on the other side of the big pond.
Linux in terms of distribution (instead of kernel) is also interesting :
- Eastern european translations are produced by volonteer at an incredible speed. One may infere that this part of europe is interested in OSS, and the Xiti study confirms it.
- Several distros where started in europe : Mandrake/Mandriva, openSuSE (that last one seem peculiar because things seem to have started going downward only after the acquisition by novell : MS-Novell deal and such)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I care because for the most part, people do not use IE/Windows out of choice, they use it by default, even when there are better alternatives available.
Windows is another problem for another rant. But let me just give you one: Anti-virus software would not have to exist, were it not for Windows. Also, hardware manufacturers tend to write their drivers for Windows only, meaning Windows gets the credit for working on just about any hardware, without having to do any of the work. It also means that they tend to not release specifications, meaning Linux has to reverse-engineer these things.
So, you, as a Windows user, are directly contributing to my problems -- things like my wireless card not working, and the difficulty of finding a wireless card known to work with Linux.
That is why we look down on you. You are making the computing world a hell for anyone who doesn't make the same choices you do (Windows/IE). Microsoft may have made Windows/IE hell to work with, but you, without even realizing it, are making it more and more difficult to choose anything else.
-MY REPLY TO ABOVE POST POINTS-
Yes, windows is the OEM default in most instances... but I use it by choice, NOT by force. I have toyed with linux and for my uses I find it unacceptaable.
In terms of technical skills, I am between Joe Average and the guru. However, I prefer things to work out of the box. If linux is to be a real viable solution for the average user it needs to be bascically plug and play.
An example from my own experience. I tried Suse 10.1, had HORRIBLE sound issues. Only one application at a time could use my sound card. I was told that it was because my soundcard did not support hardware mixing. Fair enough, and it sounded like a valid point as it is a cheapie onboard sound card. I was told I could setup software mixing. That would require installing different services and wirting a script in some language I had no knowledge of... jsut to get my sounds to work properly with my existing hadware - I shouldn't ahve to replace it to get multi channel sound. I didn't have this problem in windows. In windows it just worked without massive tinkering and coding scripts in some arcane language.
This IS why people choose windows. Ease of use and hardware support. As a comsumer I don't want to have to spend hours tinkering for stuff to work, I have better things to do with my time.
No, I'm refering to the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.
Another thought, I don't see web browsing and file managing overlapping in features that much (maybe in the visual presentation a bit), why do you assume that it makes sense for them to be integrated? To have one less app?
It's nice to be able to mix http, ftp, sftp and smb in an application that has good viewing capability. Typically http will me to some kind of file that I want to download. In the case of code, it's nice to be able to right click open it in a new tab and check it out before dragging and dropping the files I want to the place I want to keep them. Programs like Kget automate downloading links, and it's nice to be able to manipulate the place I'm going to put them before I download.
There are lots of other places where mixed behavior is nice and once you get used to it, it's hard to do without. I notice that it's missing when I use an XP system and the silly thing insists on opening separate windows. It takes time, obscures what I'm looking at and is hard to drag and drop between. Between that and clumsy virtual desktops, the system drives me nuts.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
when I browse, I use Iceweasel or Konqueror. Firefox is sooooooo "yesteryear" What's quite strange is that both the Netherlands, and Denmark have low firefox usage, and even Sweden doesn't go that high. These three countries (especially the first two) have the best internet connection in Europe by far.
You guessed right.
IE 7 made if quite hard to turn off activescripting. As a result it just doesn't seem safe surfing nefarious web sites. With Firefox you can still turn off JavaScript and all the other fancy stuff, and just surf HTML. Sounds old fashioned, but if you are just interested in text content and pictures, this is the best. It feels much safer, you don't think the web sites will take over your computer and they can't be tricky at getting around popup blockers and poping up windows everywhere. Plus you can browse around quicker as you don't have to wait for chained active content to download everywhere. The big benefit I find to running this way, is that most of the adds don't work, so they don't waste your time and bandwidth. They can't jump out at you, they can't play music, etc., etc. I have IE, Firefox and Opera all installed. But I find myself using Firefox the most because it does what I need the easiest and allows me to turn off all the annoying things I don't like that have been showing up on the web these days.
I am quite sure that if FF was a Microsoft product its performance who have been ridiculed to no end on /.
I was also under the impression that the Netherlands was doing OK in the WoS database, and IEEE, LNCS, and ACM:
The citation impact of the Netherlands academic Computer Science groups is significantly above world average. An overall normalised citation impact of 1.30 was found (a level of 1.0 represents the world average), and increasing: 1.4 and 1.6 for papers published in the last two years (2000 and 2001). [..] It was also found that among the top 10 per cent most frequently cited articles published world-wide in Computer Science, the number of papers by Netherlands academic computer scientists is 50 per cent higher than expected on the basis of the total volume of Netherlands publication output in the field.
I wonder what kinds of sources of CS papers this guy considers relevant.
So, how many times do you actually setup sound?
I agree, it is unacceptable that it should be that hard. Ubuntu's sound works fine for me, out of the box, and I'm not sure if it would on that system.
However, the question was not whether Linux is ready, but why we look down on you. You care more about convenience than (it would seem) anything else, and in so doing, you are contributing to something which does affect me. It's kind of like littering -- you can't be bothered to carry your trash to a can somewhere, so you just throw it on the sidewalk, which spoils the view for the rest of us, and depending on how bad it is, could ultimately be damaging the environment.
Maybe someday, our sidewalks will be able to simply automatically absorb trash and recycle it. Maybe someday, Linux will manage to support everything, out of the box, no tinkering. Until then, meet us halfway.
Oh, and Windows doesn't work out of the box for me, either. I have nVidia RAID. I need to have a floppy drive available or burn a custom Windows install CD. Some versions of Linux, though (Gentoo) just detect this, out of the box. So, only way you EVER get "out of the box" is a preinstall. So, pester Dell to hurry up with their Linux plans.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
"Windows is another problem for another rant. But let me just give you one: Anti-virus software would not have to exist, were it not for Windows."
If Windows didn't exist, the people who make viruses would target whatever operating system has the most users, as they obviously want to cause as much damage as possible. To say that you would need no Anti-virus software is quite silly and underestimating the tenacity of the people that make viruses.
Likewise, if Linux or Macs had a larger userbase than Windows, no doubt they would see more viruses than Windows.
I'm seeing 68% the past few months for the latest specific version (2.0.x.x) when there are not updates available during the course of that month. It's a bit over 70% if you factor in all versions of Firefox and around 75% of all visitors use a Gecko browser at my site. IE's shares are all single digits.
- John
http://www.jabcreations.com/
Actually, I remember 110 baud modems. And hand coding the connect strings.
But my son has no problems with running Firefox on his Mac Mini.
Maybe you need to stop running 12 apps at a time - which is what he frequently does - iChat multiple windows, Firefox, WoW, various music programs, and so on.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You're trolling here:
Not only is that inflammatory as hell, it's also simply untrue. People don't like to lose their documents for no reason. Open standards help with that.
In 100 years, what files will still be readable? I doubt Word95 will, not with the version of Word that's around then. But OpenDocument will.
Still, I'll reply to this as if you weren't trolling.
Or laziness. But keep in mind, it is much harder than it needs to be to create a cross-platform site. For one thing, you have to actually buy IE. Compare that to actually supported standards, like, oh, text -- I can hammer out a .txt file on any modern machine, set the fileformat to DOS, and it'll open on Windows.
Perhaps "directly responsible" is the wrong word, but I can definitely say that you're part of the problem.
This may be true now, but not always. At the very least, we aren't making it easy -- we can say "don't open attachments", but then, of course that's how they'll send photos to each other, even we will tell them to do that. We can say "only open formats you recognize", and they'll then open .doc.vbs files, or they'll open Word docs with macro viruses.
And then there's the browser. Vista is finally at least making this difficult, but there have been years during which IE and Windows were vulnerable to spyware and worms, respectively. Just try throwing an unpatched XP online, even today, without at least its built-in firewall...
And yet, you can eliminate anti-virus fairly easily, by training users. Or you can put them on a system which is hostile to viruses. The simple way of installing software on Linux is via package managers, and a virus generally can't get in through a package manager. It takes quite a few more steps to do this, a few of which are being added to Windows (UAC is a direct rip-off of sudo).
But no, virus scanners do not need to exist, and likely won't be needed even on Windows if UAC is at all successful.
The same is true in a lot of places. For example: You probably drive a car. You probably do not care that by doing so, you're slowly destroying the Earth. And no, you shouldn't have to, but it still makes you an asshole, if you have any alternative at all.
No, Microsoft leads because they've bullied themselves into the monopoly/default position, and as you said, users don't care.
So which is it? Do users not care, or do they want Microsoft? You seem to be contradicting yourself here.
Again, that's because of default choices, not because they actually don't care. If they listen to me about security, they won't use IE -- and I do often clean spyware from their computers, and the threat of no future service from me does tend to make them either start learning to clean spyware themselves, or use Firefox.
Another reason: Tabbed browsing. IE 7 only recently added this, but IE 7 is XP or Vista only, so people on 2K are stuck with Firefox or Opera. Firefox is nice here because of IETab. And if you think people don't care about this, you might talk to my mother -- over 50, financial advisor. Uses Firefox almost exclusively, and IETab for the few places that don't work under Firefox now.
Another possible reason: One keystroke to clear private data.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Linux has had a grand total of three viruses that I'm aware of in over ten years. And Linux runs plenty of servers, so don't you think someone would have written at least a few successful ones?
I think you underestimate the security of a well-designed system. Most of the problems Windows users have with viruses are not so much because Windows is popular, but because it's insecure. More recently, Windows has started to approach the security that Linux and OS X have had for some time now, meaning that it is possible to run on Windows without anti-virus, and never be 0wned, if you know what you're doing.
However, Linux, at least, reverses the situation: It's certainly possible to get 0wned, but only if you know what you're doing. It's kind of like that old joke: "This virus works on the honor system. Please forward this email to everyone on your contact list, and delete all the files on your hard drive."
Here's how a Linux virus would have to work these days: "In order to see HOT CHICKS NAKED DOING SOMETHING IN ALL CAPS, please download virus.bin, mark the file as executable, sudo to root, enter your password, and finally, run the script."
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Ehm.. Slovenia!=Slovakia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovakia
44% of Internet users in SLOVAKIA uses Firefox
I find it rather sad that you "look down" on someone over a software preferance, as if that makes you superior.
I use software that fits my needs. I would rather pay for a solution I don't have to tinker with than get a free one that is a headache. I honestly feel sorry for you if you feel that *my* software preference is the cause of *your* software problems. I'm receptive to free software/protection of rights and if an open source program is available and works up to my expectations, I'll use it.
If you want a new standard, you need to go out and prove to the masses why it is better for them. Additionally, you need to deliver and make it work, without frustrating the end user. Consumers pay good money specifically for things to work smoothly and eliminate aggrivation, not create it.
I am Dutch and I think the conformity mindset is indeed a significant reason. Secondly we have always been more of a trade nation instead of a technological leader, and very US oriented. Trade favours those that speak the most widely spoken language, wich in this case happens to be MS.
sidenote: The CS department of the University of Groningen happens to run HP-UX/Linux, maybe move there?
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
That's actually the sanest response so far, thanks.
"Look down" -- perhaps a poor choice of words. More like "frustrated by". Was replying to someone who used those words, wanting to know why people seemed to "look down" on Windows/IE users. I'm actually usually helpful and respectful, but I'm explaining a bit more why people can be frustrated to the point of saying "RTFM", and where some of the hate comes from.
I mean, I dual-boot Windows, and I do buy some games that I know will never be ported, and will never work under Wine. So, I'm also part of the problem. I do hope that I'm also part of the solution, though -- I do pay for Cedega.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Being a Ph.D. student working in Italy, I surely agree our university are a lot chaotic, but the "chaos" in our IT management is actually quite good for us. Basically the IT manages the network connection and controls if infections, bots etc. are running on the network. Other than this, you can pretty much do anything you want with your machines. This allows us to have in lab a couple of Apple boxes, a really old SGI Indigo, a bunch of various Windows and my Kubuntu box. I think that's good -we know how to run our machines, we don't need an IT department to nanny us.
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
because what could Firefox/Opera possibly mean for non-English speaker?
As for Germany (ignoring those who actually learned English in school well enough to parse the names directly):
"Opera" - English for "Oper". Fat women singing in Italian.
"Firefox" - Something about a fox pertaining to fire. Both "fox" and "fire" are common (and close to their German counterparts "Fuchs" and "Feuer") enough to be understood by most Germans.
"Internet Explorer" - A bit more tricky. "Internet" is used as a leanword in Germany so no translation is necessary. "Explorer" is a pretty uncommonly heard word; I'd say that there are as many people with no idea what it means as there are ones who understand the name. But they all know it's something about the internet.
"Safari" - The exact same word is used in German to describe the exact same thing. The common association is going through Africa, probably with a rifle.
"Konqueror" - Unintelligible. Unless the person in question understands a bit of English and loves Mortal Kombat they're not likely to get it. (KDE users get it anyway.)
"Epiphany" - Similar to its German counterpart "Epiphanie" but unlikely to be understood as few people know the German word to begin with.
"OmniWeb" - A generic brand name. Observant persons might notice that it claims to do everything with the WWW.
"Flock" - Perhaps a wooden stake ("Pflock")? Something that locks something beginning with the letter F?
"Lynx" - That's a kind of cat, isn't it? (The Lynx is a breed of cat similar to real lynxes, who go under the name of "Luchs" in Germany. And no, nobody is going to think of the Atari console.)
In the end IE doesn't fare much better than its competitors. It has the benefit of having "Internet" in its name, but then again, almost no programs have names reflecting their usage (for example Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and, in non-anglophone countries, Paint). If people tried to understand what a program does by reading its description they wouldn't come very far. That's why it's a damn good idea that many Linuxes put descriptions of the programs' roles next to their names in the app menu, like "Firefox (Web browser)".
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
As in IE has been The Standard for the last few years on the Internet. It's what the majority of users used and your site should be developed for it.
When FireFox get's enough share (which could be happening now if the numbers are accurate) then it will become The Standard -- with any flaws it may have included in that standard.
The key point is that The Standard is really what the users expect to see -- your user base is your customers.
As to the statistics shared here -- there are three kinds of lies -- lies, damn lies and statistics. It would be refreshing if the stats shown are good or accurate. I'm not holding my breath yet.
51% Mozilla http://www.nzdsl.co.nz/Stats.phtml
The population of Europe is 815 million, or about 2.75 times the US population. Physical size of nations is irrelevant. The EU is also a confederation, very similar to the American republic, whose "states" have sovereignty. "State" in fact usually refers to what Americans call a "nation," because they have a peculiar understanding of a state as a subordinate body.
Actually, I don't even have a driving licence, and we both know this analogy is silly, largely because OS choice only kills things that are subjectively good.
that's because of default choices, not because they actually don't care
I see both issues to be one and the same. The default choice requires less effort, and so it is easier for a user to use and forget about. Try telling my mother to install and use a different browser - she'll tell you to leave her PC alone, she likes the way things are.
Look, I use Opera, Firefox and IE6/7 because I have to for testing purposes. I was not making a judgement on the quality of any of them, but merely pointing out WHY users don't always use the best software.
Oh, you mean they want Apple.
No, that's the last thing I meant. If I had meant that, I would have said that I advocated tying Windows to Microsoft-built hardware that is then sold for a ridiculous price.
See Dell's Linux survey
No! That is such a typical response. When will Linux advocates learn? Getting Dell to distribute systems with the option of Linux will not entice Windows users to Linux, it will merely make buying systems from Dell more convenient for Linux users! Proactive marketing aimed towards Windows users is what is needed, and this is not on the cards.
the recent Mac vs PC ads
Are you serious? Those adverts are an abomination (see above - Dell/Linux problem). How do you think it looks to Windows users for Apple to base their entire marketing strategy on making vague claims as to what the competition don't supposedly do? Not one of those ads make a relevant, compelling reason for anyone to switch from Windows to OSX. It's almost like Apple don't want converts. My favourite is the one in which the Mac claims that Windows is only good for work, and the Mac is for entertainment. This simply doesn't strike a chord with Windows users: Media Centre, gaming, a plethora of digital media players including the new snazzy (and infinitely improved) Windows Media Player 11...
You're right, I do care. It's a pretty closely-guarded secret, but I like the idea of Linux gaining significant market share. It will force Microsoft to get its act together (like AMD did with Intel), and I would relish that kind of competition in the OS market. I just wish that Linux marketing wasn't so prohibitive. It's too technical (even Ubuntu and its hardware compatibility issues), users cannot be assured of minimal effort in transferring, and it's simply not common knowledge that there's that other option. And then of course you have that group of people (you'll know who I mean) who insist that Linux must not be "dumbed down", and text-based command interfaces should be accepted by a wide audience. It just isn't going to happen.
Apple OSX is a non-starter. In my opinion, the hardware tie is simply unacceptable. Full stop.
I do sympathise. Windows is for people who know how to cover their asses, and most people don't. This leads to very bad things. But like I said, my post wasn't about choosing one technology over another, it was about illustrating why Linux cannot grow. People like having it easy, so switching OS has to be REALLY easy for it to be viable.
Also, I'm sorry if you thought I was being inflammatory. I suppose I was, but it was borne more out of frustration for the incessant "people should use Linux" argument and a lack of progress in making this a reality, than it was about annoying you.
Amnesty International
Back before XP SP2, then IE 7.0, and now IE 7.0 on Vista I found Firefox a much better browser to use (more secure and user friendly). After the above improvments to IE I found myself using it again, basically IE has everything I need and firefox doesnt really offer anything it doesnt for regular web browsing. I still keep an old copy of firefox on my usb pen, I still find uses for the version of firefox that didnt need to be installed on the host machine.