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

[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

[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?

[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).

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.

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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: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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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: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: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.