Slashdot Mirror
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!!!!
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
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!!!!
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
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.
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
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!"
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.
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"
Only Istanbul (Constantinople, Byzantium) is technically in continental Europe. The rest is in Asia.
I find it remarkable that 13.3% is considered "low."
New Zealand is Australia's Canada.
No, this being Slashdot, it normally ends in a Kleenex.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.