Firefox Appears Ready to Crack 20% Share Next Month

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.'"

Comments

Default Browser

[timeOday]

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.

Re:Default Browser

[Anonymous Coward]

When you click on an html file or a link in some other program, the default browser is opened.

Re:Default Browser

[multi-flavor-geek]

I think that is so that when you hit one of those "internet" buttons on your keyboard (you know, right next to the big red PANIC button, it will bring up Firefox, or when you click a link in an email or something (if you would be inclined to do such a thing).

Re:Default Browser

[J_DarkElf]

And on XP and Vista, the default browser is also registered in the start menu as the 'internet' application. Which means it gets the top icon in the left row of the default setup.

And any program which follows the guidelines will launch it, and not a hardcoded internet explorer.

Re:Default Browser

[pablomme]

And any program which follows the guidelines will launch it, and not a hardcoded internet explorer. Like Windows Live Messenger, which pops up IE regardless of the default browser setting. One would think that WL Messenger, being written by Microsoft, would be more aware of system settings and their intended effects..

Re:Default Browser

[DCstewieG]

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!"

Re:Default Browser

[Khuffie]

I have my default browser as Opera. Clicking on a link in a Messenger window opens it in Opera.

Re:Default Browser

[digitrev]

Which is exactly why I use Thunderbird. Actually, that's more of a side benefit of using Thunderbird (well, at least after you install and configure the add-on to let you do that). I really use Thunderbird because I have 6 different e-mail addresses, all active for various reasons: one for school (HAVE to check that one, so I just forward it to another e-mail), one hotmail for signing up for various crap on the internet, one gmail for e-mailing other people, one gmail for slightly professional looking service (at least until I move out and get an ISP linked address), and one gmail for anonymity. Oh, and another collective e-mail for the podcast I'm part of. Between that, Firefox, and SharpReader (an rss feed), I rarely have to use IE.

Re:Default Browser

[digitrev]

Thank god I'm not the only person who still uses the run box. Nine times out of ten, it's faster than using my mouse. I just Win Key , R, firefox, and go. Or, if I really need to access iexplore, it's Win Key, R, iexplore , and go. My typing is much faster than my mousing, so anything that prevents me from using that damned mouse is perfect for me.

Re:Default Browser

[treeves]

I don't have a "Win" key, you insensitive clod!

Actually, I use a little utility called Launchy and whenever I want to start an app (not using the Start menu), I hit Alt-Space and type the first few letters and hit Return...

What's the RIGHT number?

[_bug_]

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

So which one is right?

Re:What's the RIGHT number?

[Jellybob]

Depends which segment of internet users you're looking at.

Certainly the w3schools is probably wildly off for the majority of internet users, since the people visiting the site are probably involved in web design or development, and are far more likely to be using a different web browser.

Re:What's the RIGHT number?

[JustinOpinion]

It's impossible to pick one right number... because it depends on many things. For one thing, the demographics for different sites are different, and there is undoubtedly a correlation between personal interests and selection of web-browser.

Wikipedia does a good job of summarizing the numbers. An overall share of 15% to 30% seems reasonable.

All that to say: I wouldn't worry too much about the exact numbers. What's more significant is the trends that can be seen across data-sets. Firefox had a rapid rise in popularity early on, but that leveled off. Rather than focus on an arbitrary threshold, like "breaks 20%!", I think the real story here is that Firefox usage continues to grow. Slowly but steadily the browser market is becoming more balanced.

This is significant, because a few years back, there was a real browser monopoly. I remember using the Firefox pre-1.0 betas, and many sites didn't work (they were tailor-made for IE). Nowadays, the vast majority of sites render perfectly in Firefox.

This is one of those cases where I think we won. Websites are more compliant than they once were. Alternate browsers are taken seriously. This is what we clamored for a few years ago... and we've largely achieved it!

Re:What's the RIGHT number?

[teh kurisu]

I use Safari for day-to-day browsing, but tend to use Firefox for web development because of Firebug (I know Safari has something similar, but I haven't quite got round to using it). So I'm more likely to be using Firefox when I visit w3schools.

Re:What's the RIGHT number?

[JasterBobaMereel]

It's Simple...

If 0.01% of your potential customers cannot use your website ... you shrug and get on with your work

If a fifth of your potential customers cannot use your website... you fix it!

Re:What's the RIGHT number?

[Alwin Henseler]

It's impossible to pick one right number... because it depends on many things. Yep - so the bad news: some internet users will not even have heard of Mozilla, or Firefox. And the good news: among specific user groups, Firefox has reached 100% market share.

This is one of those cases where I think we won. Websites are more compliant than they once were. Alternate browsers are taken seriously. This is what we clamored for a few years ago... and we've largely achieved it! Which (among others) is an important reason I use Firefox. Simply to let organisations & companies know that I prefer a web built on open & supported standards, rather than 'renders okay in your binary-blob-of-choice'. If I'm on a webstore, and I can't navigate, or see details for what's on sale because of some stupid "use IE 6/7 on at least 1024x768 for viewing this site" or similar, than too bad, that store will lose my sale, not my problem. If as a merchant you want to sell things to 100% of potential customers, regardless of what browser they use, then simply code to standards (and test with different browsers), period. For government sites, I think they should have a requirement to be accessible using published standards/protocols (and thus with a tool of choice). In some cases this is codified in law, but implementation isn't always done as it should be (and no-one keeping oversight).

Re:What's the RIGHT number?

[Stooshie]

Perhaps, but you'd have to weight the figures for reliability/bias etc...

Re:What's the RIGHT number?

[Snover]

merchants don't simply write off all possible disabled/injured customers and say they can do without those sales

Actually, many of them probably would if they could, but the Americans with Disabilities Act makes it illegal to do so.

defaults

[Anonymous Coward]

However, this practice is a break from the traditional practice browsers employed of defaulting this option to off.

Odd. Nearly every browser I've used warns me that it's not the default if I've set something else to be the default. I don't recall going into every single one of those and turning the "check if this browser is the default" option on.

Re:defaults

[Tubal-Cain]

The difference here seems to be making it the default browser during the install rather than bugging you with an extra pop-up at the first run.

ecommerce impact

[davejenkins]

I've seen specific cases where, unfortunately, a programming team ignored the firefox angle when testing their code, and wrote in .NET specific goodies that only worked in IE.

Sure enough, sales dipped almost 20% for a week. We ran the reports, and Firefox was accounting for 21% of site traffic (until that week, where it dropped off to almost nil). We quickly fixed the code, and firefox shot right back up to 21-22%.

The demographics for this website are a little bit younger than the general population, so it made sense that we had already broken through 20%

Re:ecommerce impact

[moore.dustin]

Your story is too convenient to be 100% true.

1) No programming team would ignore FF unless directed to do so. You are telling me you got a group of programmers together and they all loved IE so much they were completely oblivious to FF?

2) Some .NET goodies didnt work? Only some? If sales dipped like you said... then the whole system had to be hosed to get 0 sales from that demographic.

3) You traffic would not drop to nil in a week, so that is your biggest "I am lying" thing. You are suggesting that all your past users accessed your site that week, saw it didnt work right, and decided to not come back ever again. None of the only check the site every couple weeks? I mean give me a break - this is obviously an exaggeratiom

4) FF traffic shot back up in a week. (See #3)

5) Your 'younger' crowd would have been apt to try your site in IE if it failed in FF... at least in lets say... 25% of the cases.

The bottom line is this story is almost certainly partially fabricated and why? Do you not like Microsoft or maybe you just really like FF? I cannot believe you got modded up for blatant fanboyism.

Re:ecommerce impact

[serviscope_minor]

Well, I'm not the OP, but:

1) No programming team would ignore FF unless directed to do so. You are telling me you got a group of programmers together and they all loved IE so much they were completely oblivious to FF?

Never underestimate bad development: http://www.thedailywtf.com/.

2) Some .NET goodies didnt work? Only some? If sales dipped like you said... then the whole system had to be hosed to get 0 sales from that demographic.

I'd guess all. Not that it needs to be. If the "goody" is something like checking out, then you'd get 0 sales.

3) You traffic would not drop to nil in a week, so that is your biggest "I am lying" thing. You are suggesting that all your past users accessed your site that week, saw it didnt work right, and decided to not come back ever again. None of the only check the site every couple weeks? I mean give me a break - this is obviously an exaggeratiom

  4) FF traffic shot back up in a week. (See #3)

  5) Your 'younger' crowd would have been apt to try your site in IE if it failed in FF... at least in lets say... 25% of the cases.

Consider sites like tiger direct or new egg. If one wasn't working, or frankly was even a bit slow, I'd go to the other and buy my stuff. You'd see one page hit on the broken one, and loads on the other as I did my searched. I buy new stuff maybe once in every 6 months, but the traffic of these sites is high. If everyone was a lazy, impatient, and not very frequent shopper like myself, a traffic pattern like this would be likely. The people coming in week 2 would not be the same people in the 9broken) week one. Also if there is stiff competition, then website problems just make me go elsewhere.

Re:ecommerce impact

[moore.dustin]

Making quite a few reaches to defend him are we not? A defense like that almost proves that he was fibbing.

Re:ecommerce impact

[quacking duck]

No programming team would ignore FF unless directed to do so. You are telling me you got a group of programmers together and they all loved IE so much they were completely oblivious to FF? I *wish* this were true. A .NET vendor for my work did just that, and when we asked why Firefox didn't work they said they'd fix the issues for a very tidy sum, or they'd have to re-allocate time/money from more urgent tasks (we're a small org, the vendor was delivering customizations for a huge .NET product, I had no say in our requirements, and my supervisor has an irrational hate on for Firefox). Of course, they're now proceeding further developing against IE only, so it'll be that much more effort if/when there's a push for standards compliance.

The flip side are a few vendors who *didn't* test on IE before delivery, only Firefox. That caused just as many headaches for me, with the secondary effect that it entrenches my supervisor's opinion against Firefox even more.

Re:ecommerce impact

[steelfood]

How does GP's defense of GGGP have any bearing on the issue at hand? I think if you had any reasonable replies to GP's counterarguments, you would've stated them, instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks on GP and GGGP.

And for the record, there is nothing in GGGP's anecdote that has raised any red flags for me.

installation (and 'since correctly changed'?)

[Animaether]

"the installation now has a checkbox that defaults to making Firefox your default browser"

It's an installation of a browser. Why would you -not-
1. Offer the option to make it the default browser
and
2. Have that option pre-selected.

I would expect a browser to do this. I would expect an image viewer to present me with the option to change image file associations and have those checked by default, a music player to associate MP3s, etc. -On installation-.

I don't want this happening when you simply start the application (I'm looking at you, Outlook).

"unlike Safari, which misleadingly labeled the Safari install as an "update"(1) [but has] since correctly changed to an 'install.'".
Great, so the Apple update checking thingy now has two sections(2). One for actual updates, and one below that for -completely unrelated applications- to be peddled onto your machine. Still selected by default.

No longer labeling it as an 'update' is a good step, but it's not the major gripe with this practice in the first place.

1) http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee248/msanto/One-Offs%202008/AppleUpdateSafari.jpg
2) http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee248/msanto/One-Offs%202008/AppleUpdateSafari2.jpg

Please, please, please Mozilla... don't start peddling Thunderbird to Firefox users in the update checks; or if you do, make sure it's -not selected- by default.

Re:installation (and 'since correctly changed'?)

[heffrey]

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.

Doesn't seem entirely unreasonable..

[Xocet_00]

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.

Re:So ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me example of a browser which does not do that during the install process?

Well, isn't that ironic?

[wattrlz]

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.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Warll]

It's because of IE that most web devs use Firefox. I mean how can one wilingfuly swear and condem IE to the depths of hell while still using it as your primary browser?

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Anonymous Coward]

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? Who cares? As long as you test your work in the other browsers all's well.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Rydian]

Any web designer or developer worth the paper their paychecks are written on should be testing their sites against all of the major browsers anyways.

Doing so makes whatever browser you're using for your normal browsing irrelevant.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[moderatorrater]

Because IE's a bitch to develop with. On a javascript error, it tells you the correct line number but it can't tell you which file it's in. It doesn't allow anywhere near the quality of plugins that firefox does, so it doesn't get firebug, greasemonkey, etc. Finally, IE doesn't comply with the standards very well, so it's a lot harder to get the site looking how you want it to. With firefox, when you make a change you can know fairly well what that change is going to do. When you're developing a site and making a lot of changes and tweaks, it's important to have a browser that you can work with. Converting the final product to something IE can render is a lot easier to working with IE the entire way.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Jellybob]

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.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[D'Sphitz]

Firebug.

Also, it's much easier to develop for firefox and then tweak for IE than vice versa.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Tubal-Cain]

The same way many people can bash windows and continue to use it.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Touvan]

Firefox has Firebug. It's easier to develop in Firefox than anything else because of that one extension.

Also, if it works in Firefox, it generally works in Safari and Opera, with minor changes.

Also, it's easier to add the hacks into a page for IE that displays according to the standards, than it is to make changes to a page developed for IE, to work in all the various other browsers (quirks modes vary more widely across the browser spectrum than standards mode does, and generally, pages built in IE are built in quirks mode, since IE page devs don't tend to care about standards).

Also, there are a lot of articles online about how to make IE behave in more standards compliant ways, and almost no articles about how to make all of the other browsers behave like IE (since it's largely impossible to get them all to behave the same way when you go at it from that direction).

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[lattyware]

Because Firefox renders our code correctly. IE doesn't. Design for Firefox, you design to standards, design for IE, you design for IE.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[naasking]

Which is perfectly reasonable when there isn't a viable, (read: largely compatible) alternative.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up!

IMHO Web Dev Toolbar and Firebug are the two biggest reasons for Firefox's adoption. Being able to poke about in the DOM and inspect individual elements, and to put breakpoints into JavaScript, are HUGE wins for developers. Even if your final site will never be looked at by any browser except IE, it's still faster to make it work in FF and then tweak it as necessary.

To do decent debugging in IE, you have to install Visual Studio... ick.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Lumpy]

Because web designers and developers are inherently lazy. you DO NOT DESIGN your pages for a SPECIFIC BROWSER. you design them to the standard and DO NOT USE functions that break the site across browsers.

It's easy to do if you start off doing it right away when you start the design. Only very recently did I start using png files in websites based on the browser stats from my servers.

IE6 is horribly broken and kept me from using png files. now that IE6 has dropped below FF on my server stats I now use PNG files because the top 75% of my visitors use a browser that actually displays them right.

Just like how I still avoid majorly nested DIV tags because IE7 has some problems with advanced stuff when opera and FF did not. so I simply drop back to a table in those divs and it fixes the issue.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[mgblst]

And IE comes with the Operating System, so most people don't know any better.

So the two reasons, Firefox is better, but users don't know. Those two things combined keep Microsoft in business.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Stooshie]

Why is it that web designers and developers ... ... use a browser that most of their users won't?

Because there are many many plugins to assist with debugging JavaScript, XHTML compliance, AJaX, Accessibility Issues and many other problems that occour.

Anyway, you should be writing to standards, not browsers. Write to the standards first (FF much more compliant) then test in other less compliant browsers.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[drodal]

Well, At time, microsoft was betting the farm on the fact that most people would NOT bother programming for anything BUT IE. Some people around me had that attitude. I didn't because I wouldn't help microsoft conquer the world. It was hard in the netscape 4.7 days though. So I would develop in netscape and test with IE. Yes it's a lot easier now. And yes Firebug helps too.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[TheDreadSlashdotterD]

Don't you mean a largely more entrenched alternative?

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[bsDaemon]

I know that GNU's Not UNIX -- but it was supposed to try and be. The real question is, why should Linux try and be "largely compatible" with Windows?

If it were meant to be an "alternative" to windows, using your metric of "largely compatible," then it shouldn't have been a UNIX clone, it should have been a DOS/Win32 clone, shouldn't it have?

Linux "fails" to take to the Desktop because it fails to be Windows. It fails to be Windows because it is not -- it's Unix. And that means it has a completely different underlying philosophy of how things should be done that goes back over 30 years.

Then again, it seems that most people who "switch" to Linux, especially these days, do it because they want cheap/free windows, then complain when its not windows.

This is like buying a Crysler 300M then complaining that its not as nice as the Bentley Brooklands that its a rip-off of.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[rubberglove]

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

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Pugwash69]

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.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Snover]

The issue you describe in IE has probably nothing to do with the nesting and everything to do with hasLayout. Also, if you've got more than 2 or 3 <div> inside each-other, you should re-evaluate what you're doing and probably use a more appropriate element (ul, ol, dl, p, h1-h6, etc).

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[AI0867]

Whereas firefox is even compatible with IE's bugs. (

overflows and more)

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Thyamine]

How does that make it irrelevant? I use a web browser outside of work related tasks all the time. Why would I not use the browser I preferred most? Certainly for testing a site, I'd expect to check using several browsers, but I don't see a need to visit /. using IE, then Firefox, then maybe Opera or Safari, and then back to IE.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[ady1]

So what you are saying is that linux is not like windows but is like unix? and yet in your last line, you say that its a ripoff of windows?

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[bsDaemon]

I'm saying that a lot of people -- especially these days -- to whom Linux was billed as an "alternative" to Windows expect it to look like Windows, work like Windows, and do the same sort of things Windows does.

Let us ignore commodity hardware for a second and think back a few years.

One would not buy a "PC" to run scientific applications or do any serious 3D modeling -- that is what Sun and SGI were for. Likewise, while one COULD generate documents on a an O2, just using Office or WordPerfect on a "PC" is a lot easier.

f/oss operating systems, but running on commodity hardware confuse the issue for people who have for so long connected "PC" with DOS/Windows. A lot of people in their 40s/50s still call it "IBM," even if its a Dell.

Then along come people, most of whom have a political agenda or just hate Microsoft, and try and "convert" people to Linux. "Its like Windows, only better," they say -- just like how people will describe GIMP as "like photoshop, only better" or "free photoshop."

Then the 'convert' comes with their preconceived notions of what the system is supposed to do -- and they EXPECT it to be "like Windows" or "free photoshop."

Then those people bitch and complain because they feel let down.

Linux is fine, if its not trying to be Windows. GIMP is fine, if its not trying to be Photoshop.

But then those same people with the political agenda, but this time just the ones with coding skills, they come out and try and make the system MORE like Windows, MORE like Photoshop, etc.

So, in the process of trying to cater to people who switched from Windows because they hated it, they make the system more like Windows -- and start to whittle away the stuff that made the system different and good in the first place, at least from a technological standpoint.

However, I suppose it makes sense to them that a half-assed rip-off of windows that is at least "free" is somehow better than "the real thing." It just confuses the issue and really to no avail.

This is why I use BSD -- because I don't really give a crap about "free software," converting people, etc. I care that the system works and does what I want, and if I don't have code for nvidia drivers, then tough noogies. When I was in high school I used to shell out for XiG Accelerated X server instead of using XFree86, too. If I had been able to afford BSD/OS back then, I would have bought it, too.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[OzBeserk]

One word: Firebug. It's by far the most powerful tool I know for untangling the front end HTML generated from JSF etc and helping work out which actual CSS styles are being picked up by HTML elements.

Re:So ...

[Pecisk]

What's wrong with having default as enabled? All applications around the world does it and even hides it in advanced install settings. Firefox doing it openly is just OK. Not good, not bad, but just OK.

Stop being so nitpicking. I am no total Firefox fan (have lot of issues in Ubuntu), but this is not a case to bash them.

Time to Celerate!

[AioKits]

Be sure to pick up something from the Mozilla Store!

http://store.mozilla.org/

I got me one of these: http://store.mozilla.org/product.php?code=MZ34014&catid=10

Wish I got paid for product placement in my comments...

Re:So ...

[MagdJTK]

To be fair, most people installing it will want it as default. And besides, if they don't, the next time they open IE or whichever other browser they use, it will throw a hissy-fit about not being the default and show some obnoxious message complaining about this and suggesting they correct their error.

Re:So ...

[kingjoebob]

I installed the RC1 and the check box is rather obvious. Not to mention IE will throw a fit if its not the default browser next time its opened. As for immoral Nah. Bad practice maybe, but presumably if you are downloading the browser then you are doing so with the intention of making it your default browser, seeing as I don't download random browsers just for the hell of it. kjb

Re:So ...

[MightyYar]

I don't really see the big deal. Most programs make themselves the "handler" for whatever file type they support by default upon install. Quicktime, MS Media Player, and Real all do this with media files. Every photo viewer I've ever installed does this with image files.

It's especially innocuous here, because if you accidentally make Firefox your default, IE will simply ask you if you would like to make IT the default browser upon the next run (with the default again checked "yes").

20% market share?

[Fri13]

Mozilla Firefox already has much bigger market share on many countries. Ex. on Finland is over 40% and most ITC sites report Mozilla is over 50% market share owning browser. Many other EU country has over 30-40% market share and looks like only few big country has lower than those and where IE still dominates.

Default for How Long?

[mpapet]

Am I the only desktop admin who has, in the recent past, seen the default browser switch back to IE after and update from Microsoft?

I think it's been a while because I control when updates are applied and I don't remember a recent situation when that occurred.

I have a feeling there may be another update coming to "fix" the default browser. More likely in a new and improved convoluted way involving a dialog box, but still....

Percentage is meaningless

[A beautiful mind]

I happen to live in a country where Firefox usage broke 45% months ago and is the most popular browser, overtaking IE by 5-6%.

I honestly don't care about marketshare after the point of no return has passed where web developers are forced to use the standard in order to make it work on multiple browsers.

Re:Percentage is meaningless

[mgblst]

Make sure you keep it a secret, and don't mention that country. Nobody is interested in that sort of information.

Have they made it multi process yet on unix?

[Viol8]

I'm really getting tired of firefox crapping out on me (usually because of flash it has to be said) and because its running one big multi threaded app no matter how many windows you open or seperate instances you attempt to start, the whole lot disappear taking all my sessions with them. The current multi process option doesn't work. Have they added one yet that does because it really needs it if they can't sort out the reliability?

Presumably they make it multi threaded so it fits into Windows limited process model but surely a multi process version can't be hard to achieve!

Re:So ...

[beelsebob]

During the *update* process, I can't think of any other browser that does this.

OT Mod comment

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

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

Re:OT Mod comment

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. I hope they put that mod in when the add the Pedant mod.

Re:OT Mod comment

[Tranzistors]

If the question is good and is worth other people attention, it should be modded "interesting".

Re:OT Mod comment

[somersault]

That should be around the time that they add the boldly sarcastic mod.

Maybe

[assertation]

Maybe with 20% market share I will start meeting web site designers who know that Microsoft is not "the internet", that there are other browsers and that the W3 sets the standards.

Re:Maybe

[Alwin Henseler]

Maybe with 20% market share I will start meeting web site designers who know that Microsoft is not "the internet", that there are other browsers and that the W3 sets the standards. Web site designers will know this already, unless they're even more stupid than some of their users. But this isn't even relevant. What is relevant, is that there's a significant percentage that uses something other than what's most popular (and that this percentage consists of several 'others').

If you're a company and ignore a significant percentage of potential customers, that will cost you. Few companies can afford to lose out on those customers, when the competition is happy to serve them. Darwinian selection will do the rest, and (after time) leave only companies where you can use any reasonable popular browser to do business with. Ofcourse for government institutions, or companies in some sort of monopoly position (like the only provider of goods/services in a specific market) these rules may work different, but that's the general idea.

The most successful FOSS product?

[assertation]

Would having 20% of the share of the browser market make Firefox the most successful *end user* FOSS?

If so, I think it provides a loud message to old school free(dom) software developers who see crappy interfaces as only a small inconvenience that users SHOULD suck up and stop "whining" about.

IMHO one of the reasons for the success of Firefox among Jane User is the easy of use and simple interface.

Re:The most successful FOSS product?

[lattyware]

End user, yes, otherwise I presume Apache is what we are all thinking of.

Re:LOOK! LISTEN! HEED!

[Stooshie]

Firefox sucks as a browser.

public static function firefoxSux():boolean
{
return false;
}

"According to NetApplications" -- bah!

[schmiddy]

I have long distrusted these shady stats companies that provide these figures with absolutely no way to check their validity. I poked around a bit on netapplications.com, and although they don't actually tell you outright, I gather that their Firefox statistics come from corporate websites that they host(?). Needless to say, there might be a huge bias here (e.g. the types of companies in bed with NetApplications might be biased towards having a large influx of corporate users on IE, or something like that).

So what to do about this lack of statistics? A couple months ago I wrote a bot that crawled webalizer statistics pages, harvested the results, loaded them into MySQL, and produced aggregate browser statistics by month. To make a long story short, I had difficulty getting enough Webalizer pages to make for a really good study (my bot was just scraping Google), but I showed around ~20% Firefox usage. Results here. If there's interest in this project, it could easily be revived.

That would be an odd setup

[GameboyRMH]

If you're switching away from IE, you might as well switch away from its annoying pet chihuahua WL Messenger. There are SO many alternatives out there...GAIM, Miranda, Pidgin, and Trillian (free edition) come to mind...

Re:That would be an odd setup

[Inner_Child]

You could also check out Emesene. It's fairly new to the scene, but looks promising.

Slashdot browser usage distribution??

[BlackCreek]

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).

Already there.

[iplayfast]

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!)

Re:LOOK! LISTEN! HEED!

[Anonymous Coward]

public static function ieSucks() {
        $browser = get_browser();
        $name = $browser['browser'];
        $version = $browser['version'];

        if ($name == "MSIE") {
                switch ($version) {
                        default:
                                $stillsucks = true;
                        break;
        }

        return $stillsucks;
}

while (ieSucks()) {
        switchTo('Firefox');
}

Re:LOOK! LISTEN! HEED!

[Dallas Caley]

I totally agree

Internet Explorer is simply the best tool ever (for downloading Firefox) i wouldn't even think of using anything else

Wait... what was the question?

Re:So ...

[TheRaven64]

Most programs make themselves the "handler" for whatever file type they support by default upon install. Quicktime, MS Media Player, and Real all do this with media files. Every photo viewer I've ever installed does this with image files. Which is a huge pain in a lot of cases. I haven't used Windows for a while, but I remember that clicking on a JPEG image was likely to open a completely random program because I had a dozen apps that were all capable of viewing JPEGs (even though only a couple could edit them) and whichever one had been updated most recently claimed the associations. It's fine to add yourself as a possible handler for a particular type of content, but becoming the default is just likely to piss users off.

Firebug

[MisterSquirrel]

I use primarily Firefox during web development, because it seems more efficient and sensible to target a reasonably compliant browser first, and then adjust to IE afterward. I use Firefox mostly because having Firebug available is so useful during development and debugging.

Re:LOOK! LISTEN! HEED!

[CastrTroy]

Personally I prefer using command line FTP to download Firefox on windows machines. That way I never have to use Internet Explorer. On Linux I just urpmi (or whatever your distro uses) to get firefox.

Re:LOOK! LISTEN! HEED!

[hairyfeet]

Actually IMHO I think Firefox is a MUCH better tool for downloading Firefox than IE. Then once Firefox is done installing I just switch over to...Firefox.

Re:LOOK! LISTEN! HEED!

[hairyfeet]

I learned a long time ago it is wise to keep a basic suite of tools on a thumb drive,because I never know when I'm asked to look at a pc what I'm going to find. I have also found it great for class and visits to friends as I can keep my bookmarks as well as have all the tools I need for repairs and the occasional office work. I don't know how it is there,but here I see WAY too many computers with free versions of MS Works(shudder).

By having both OO.o and Firefox on a stick I can show customers without installing anything to their computers how nice the free tools are and if they like them(which they usually do) I can whip out my "handy dandy freebie cd" and install OO.o,Inkscape,Gimp,etc while I use Firefox on my flash to grab the latest Firefox. I have found my "all the basics" pack is the most popular-OO.o,Firefox or Seamonkey with Adblock and Noscript(depending on whether they still download mail or not),Gimp and Klite codec pack. I have found this setup gives my customers a good 85-90% of what they need for everything they want their PC to do. I can't wait until both Firefox and OO.o hit V.3.0 as I've found the new layout to both(as well as better memory management) are really nice and will make a welcome addition to my "Handy dandy freebie cd". But that is my 02c,YMMV

Re:Linux on the desktop

[Tweenk]

I find it much easier to install Pidgin (formerly GAim) on Windows and Mac compared to Linux. Because you don't know about package managers, or didn't care to check out the "Add/Remove..." option in the apps menu?
I don't know how software installation can be easier that it currently is. The only major problem is that it's different, and that Windows' "Add/Remove Software" dialog doesn't actually let you add any software.