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Firefox Appears Ready to Crack 20% Share Next Month

Posted by timothy on from the one-in-five dept.

CWmike writes "Mozilla's Firefox browser is on pace to hit the 20% market-share mark next month. Net Applications marketing VP Vince Vizzaccaro didn't pin all of Firefox's increase on a change last month to its update dialog; he did note the new approach. 'Mozilla has implemented a change in Firefox 3.0 [Release Candidate 1] where the installation now has a checkbox that defaults to making Firefox your default browser,' he explained. He refused to ding Mozilla for the practice. 'The option is clearly displayed and labeled, unlike Safari, which misleadingly labeled the Safari install as an "update" [but has] since correctly changed to an 'install.' However, this practice is a break from the traditional practice browsers employed of defaulting this option to off.'"

13 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. Default Browser by timeOday · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What does the "default browser" setting actually do? I always run the browser by clicking the "firefox" icon (or "internet explorer," if necessary). So I don't see when the "default browser" is invoked.

    1. Re:Default Browser by DCstewieG · · Score: 5, Interesting

      One would think that WL Messenger, being written by Microsoft, would be more aware of system settings and their intended effects.. A cynic might imagine they understand this quite well.
      1. Casual Firefox user clicks link from friend
      2. IE opens asking if it should be set as the default
      3. An IE user is reborn
      I suppose this list replaces the ??? between "ignore system setting" and "Profit!"
  2. What's the RIGHT number? by _bug_ · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Firefox @ 16%
    Firefox @ 18%
    Firefox @ 40%

    So which one is right?

  3. Doesn't seem entirely unreasonable.. by Xocet_00 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I mean, most people that go out of their way to download a browser installer probably intend to use that browser as their default, whether it's Safari, Opera or Firefox.

    Picture this: Joe User downloads and installs Firefox, clicks right through the installer without reading and then starts clicking the little Firefox icon when he wants to surf the net. However, since the 'default' checkbox was blank by default, whenever his friend on MSN sends him a link, he clicks it and it opens in Internet Explorer. In my experience, a very large number of users will not notice that they're not in their usual browser for quite a while. They may navigate away from the linked site and do banking or other security sensitive stuff, but now they're in a browser that hasn't necessarily been keeping up with patches because it's rarely being run.

    I don't know, but it seems to be that it's safer to default that box to be checked. Users that keep multiple browsers for testing purposes already know to look for it, will remember to uncheck it, and are in the minority anyway.

  4. Well, isn't that ironic? by wattrlz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why is it that web designers and developers - and I'm guilty of this too - almost always knowingly use a browser that most of their users won't? I guess it's not so much of a problem anymore, but back in the day developing in Firefox, Opera, or any browser that wasn't IE was a sure way to run into interesting and convoluted issues when your users views your page in IE and it renders all differently.

    1. Re:Well, isn't that ironic? by Jellybob · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It takes a fraction of the time needed to make a site that was built in Firefox to work in IE compared to making a site built in IE work with any real web browser.

      In most cases I can build the site using Firefox, knowing that'll it'll be 99% the same in Safari, Opera, and whatever other browsers you can think of. Then I just need an IE specific stylesheet (that'll be full of nasty hacks) to make everything look right in IE as well.

      And that's not taking into account the extensions that make life so much more pleasant. Firebug alone must have saved me several days of tracing bugs this year.

    2. Re:Well, isn't that ironic? by rubberglove · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I haven't actually tried this yet, but I got all excited when I saw it: firebug lite

    3. Re:Well, isn't that ironic? by Pugwash69 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I use Firefox because it's usually a better indicator of errors in the HTML, especially with a w3c validator add on enabled. At least any sites I built to work in Firefox and IE6 didn't break when IE7 came out.

      --
      Pro Coffee Drinker
    4. Re:Well, isn't that ironic? by AI0867 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Whereas firefox is even compatible with IE's bugs. (
      overflows and more)
  5. Re:installation (and 'since correctly changed'?) by heffrey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There's actually quite a lot to be said for asking certain questions when an app starts rather than at installation time.

    The questions you ask at installation time should be the ones that sysadmins can answer, like where do you want me to put the app and which components do you want to install.

    The questions you ask when a user starts the app (for the first time) are questions that the user's answer. An easy way to work out which category a particular choice falls in is whether or not the setting is per user or one setting for the entire machine.

    The default browser is a per user setting and the choice should be offered when a user starts the app for the first time.

    Presumably what Mozilla have done is to set the default browser for the user performing the installation. This seems somewhat perverse.

    Of course Mozilla has little penetration in corporations where these issues are more relevant. And it won't ever get any such penetration until there are good tools for packaging Firefox + add-ons in an MSI. Before anyone flames about MSI being Windows only, corporations overwhelmingly use Windows on the desktop. And even for non-corp users I'll bet Firefox gets more use in Windows than the other OSs combined.

  6. OT Mod comment by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That comment isn't informative, its inquisitive, which should be a mod option.

    --
    Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  7. Slashdot browser usage distribution?? by BlackCreek · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Yo,Taco!

    Where, and when are we getting to see the browser usage distribution of Slashdot?

    I bet you could have one of those stories with more than 1000 posts by publishing it in the "Taco Blog", and linking to it.

    It would probably be very interesting to see how (if?) the distribution varies depending on section (games, linux, mac etc).

  8. Already there. by iplayfast · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I run a fairly busy site that has the following stats:
    1. Internet Explorer 97,589 75.07%
    2. Firefox 26,383 20.30%
    3. Safari 4,844 3.73%
    4. Opera 500 0.38%
    5. Netscape 329 0.25%
    6. Mozilla 270 0.21%
    7. Konqueror 37 0.03%
    8. Camino 21 0.02%
    9. Mozilla Compatible Agent 6 > 0.00%
    10.
    Playstation 3 5 > 0.00%

    What is interesting to note is that this site is for stock investors so think middle aged, none-technical crowd.
    (Com-on Konqueror!)