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Firefox 3.5 Now the Most Popular Browser Worldwide
gQuigs notes a graph up at StatCounter Global Statistics, which shows that in the last few days Firefox 3.5 became the most used browser version worldwide, edging ahead of IE7. IE8 is rising fast (along with Windows 7), but over the last few months the slope of Firefox's worldwide curve has been steeper. (In the US, IE8 has always been ahead of Firefox 3.5; in Europe Firefox has led since late summer.) The submitter suggests using the time when Firefox rules the roost, globally speaking, to put the final nail in the coffin of IE6, which still has a 14% global share (5%-7% in the US and EU; China and Korea are holding up IE6's numbers).
OS next.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
This is bond to happen. Even our manager can manage to feel the speed difference between IE7 and FF3, let alone FF3.5's tracemonkey and stuff. Even if people are not interested in Open Standard, vast amount of plug-ins and things, this alone would make people switch.
just wonder why there are so many anonymous cowards in this world....
Mammon slept. And the beast reborn spread over the earth and its numbers grew legion. And they proclaimed the times and sacrificed crops unto the fire, with the cunning of foxes. And they built a new world in their own image as promised by the sacred words, and spoke of the beast with their children. Mammon awoke, and lo! it was naught but a follower.
IE has been diluted by three different versions. IE6 is only really held on to by organisations that developed everything for IE6, and subsequently had everything break when testing IE7. This despite IE6 barely working on half the internet now. Ironically Mircosoft's attempt at lock-in in the past has backfired, few outfits have updated to IE7, less to IE8.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I'm finding it hard to believe that IE6 is stilling around at all... The only situation where I would use that junk is if I had a software lock-down at work....
and even then I'd re-consider working there for being too archaic.
Congratulations Firefox: It was just a matter of time before quality gets reflected in market shares!
Seems to me IE6 having any market share at all is because of the huge number of XP non registered copies floating around in places like China and even the US. Besides how would bot nets survive without Windows warez! Hopefully as HTML5 becomes more developed it will kill it once and for all.
Considering most Firefox users are more tech savvy than average and many of them are likely to have already blocked StatCounter altogether, this is impressive.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
I have another way -- Firefox (all versions) at 32%, Internet Explorer (all versions) at 55%. The fact that the IE market is split between 6.X, 7.X and 8.X doesn't not detract from the (regrettable) fact that Internet Explorer is the most popular browser, worldwide. Different versions do not a different browser make.
In hindsight, this distribution is rather predictable -- FF nags you to update (rightly so) whereas IE can't even update itself, let along notify you about it.
Here's a plot (thankfully, they give out the raw CSV data) with the "all versions" included. Firefox has a ways to go. http://yfrog.com/j5temptlp
Thanks Microsoft, and some congratulations should also go to America for supporting them!
(Look at the browser share stats for example).
Personally, I blame it all on the Marketing people.
Ah, say the marketing people, he's going for that "anti-microsoft" dollar. Big dollar, big market, very smart of him to go for that.
(Props to Bill Hicks. How we miss thee, Bill)
You're going to see IE8 be absolutely huge over the next 5 years - even if firefox is preferred by geeks and the somewhat tech savvy.
As the huge 32/64bit transition begins (next 12 to 36 months my guess) business's finally can roll out 64bit Windows 7, avoiding Vista entirely and finally retiring Windows XP.
This is going to continue to increase IE8 marketshare much like IE6's was boosted from XP, so what we can only hope is that IE8 isn't garbage (me, I don't know? I use Firefox also)
For what it's worth, I work for one of the state govt's of Australia and one of our departments has just switched from Win2k to XP :/ so I'm guessing we won't be moving to Windows 7 for at least 2 years.
Separating out versions of different browsers is just plain silly.
If you put all the firefox's (1-3.5) vs. the IE's (5-8) what do you get? The winner for now is still IE. Now, Firefox is getting more blot, and IE getting better. What will Firefox do to fight back? Add even more blot? I have moved to using IE, Firefox, and chrome for now. If firefox keeps down this path, I will stop using it.
If any of the IE versions had automatic updating to the latest version like Firefox has, IE would easily win.
Everyone I know whom I have shown Firefox with Adblock Plus switches and stays with it. The Internet with ads is just horrid (sorry Slashdot!).
Now that Firefox is the dominant browser, perhaps the topic graphic should default to Firefox instead of IE? It is more recognizable.
Reenactment - relative has problem with computer
1. Remove shortcuts to Internet Explorer
2. Rename Firefox shortcuts to "Internet"
Firefox 3.5 - My Idea
Jason-Palmer.com
A more accurate graph for the "Most Popular Browser Worldwide" would be given by:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-weekly-200827-200951
Here you see a more representative picture - IE's decline and Firefox's rise, but still IE's total share is 55% to Firefox's 32%
Just because we're in the midst of an IE upgrade from 7-8 doesn't make Firefox now the most popular browser. Sure, this version is currently a little ahead of each of IE7 and IE8, but to me what this really indicates is that Firefox users upgrade faster.
Firefox 3.5 is a very slow piece of shit, reminds me of old Internet Explorer versions. I am using Firefox 3.6 Beta6 and it is so much faster! I hope most of these Firefox 3.5 people upgrade to 3.6 ASAP when it is released.
I helped a family friend setup their new computer (which had Windows 7 on it) and the first thing I did was download Firefox 3.5, installed the IE Aero theme and removed any references to IE I could find. The nice thing with this theme is very few non-technical users notice a difference other than their browser seems to load pages faster.
"During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
http://xkcd.com/198/
/..
Unless you're a web browser developer, keeping track of global browser market-shares is just plain nerdy. But then again, this is
I don't know a single home user on any OS that is using IE6. My incredibly behind-the-times relatives on Windows 2000 are using Firefox, and any of my XP or newer friends and colleagues are using Firefox or a newer flavor of IE (or even Chrome). No, the thing holding up IE6 is corporate America. My company has 70 large locations in America, and probably twice that around the glob, together running about 60,000 computers. Only one (very tiny) division of our company is allowed to run anything other than IE6, and that's because they are a Windows Vista technical support group. The rest of us are forced to use IE6 because most of our applications have been replaced by browser-based 'solutions' like Siebel CRM and the like, using ActiveX and most of which aren't officially supported on newer browsers. It's painful.
They are blocked in all ad blockers and some firewall software (those with built-in malware filters).
This is because of their web beacons that they integrate into sites, and that invade your privacy by tracking you across sites.
I had to turn off my ad blocker, to be able to open their site.
So you can guess in what direction the statistics are biased.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Just had a look at the stats for New Zealand (where I come from) IE 6 accounts for now only around 9% of the browser market. Now if I could get a certain clients head around that fact and that he should upgrade his browser to something that isn't quite so shit, then maybe both of us could get some sleep
If you look at the browsers, independent of the version:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-weekly-200827-200951
you see that IE is clearly far on top.
BUT, as I previously said, Statcounter does not count anyone with an ad blocker, in browser, in the firewall, etc.
Because they are blocked for tracking users across sites with their web beacon.
So not only are the numbers strongly biased in one direction. No TFS biases them back in the other direction.
That is, all in all, a truly epic fail. And I’m not even a statistics guy. I bet those would first die from the horrors, and then spin in their graves fast enough to power a small city. ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
:-(
P-plate adventurer
Now I have to find a new browser. I can't use popular software or else my nerd cred goes down!
I bet it is because it has 'delete recent history' for certain periods of time, so it makes it easier to look at pr0n.
You need to look at the trends for IE7 and IE8, it looks like the market share is trending towards upgrades from IE7 to IE8, just like how Firefox 3 lost share at around the same rate as Firefox 3.5 gained share. Going by this, you'll see that IE8 is going to head straight back up to around the 40% mark. Which, all things considered is GREAT news - IE8 is a much better browser as far as standards-compliancy is concerned and it means the web is on it's way to being a much more stable platform, rah rah rah. Also interesting, check the decline in IE6 also - I wonder if IE6 users are flocking to IE8 also - maybe IE8 will end up with ~60% market share? No matter what happens, less IE7 and IE6 = WIN.
Unless you're a web browser developer, keeping track of global browser market-shares is just plain nerdy.
That or a web site developer like myself. Tracking the fall of IE 6 is important because the engine powering IE 6 supports far less of the coming HTML5 standard than the other possibilities (Mozilla Gecko, Apple WebKit, and Opera Presto).
The Antarctica graph is intersting...
I work for a large company with 130k employees and EVERYBODY uses IE6 because it's what the IT department mandates. To get an exception to this you have to go through so much hassle and have a business provable reason for the request.
I wish I could use a better browser, IE6 really sucks in many many ways. It's slooww, has memory leaks like you wouldn't believe and doesn't even render slashdot correctly.
Liberty.
After all these years hearing the BS about I.E. being so popular.... This is proof, maybe you can fix stupid. People have come around.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
...just imagine a Beowulf cluster of Firefox plugins!
Don't laugh, some joker will probably do it just to prove it can be done.
-- thinkyhead software and media
...on my servers come from hijacked IE6 machines or bots claiming to be IE6.
Nail cannot come too soon.
I am a science fantasy fan
I live in Japan and adoption seems really conservative. Let's first take version numbers away to get a better view.
Japan
Firefox has been having a 21-23% share for the 2 years, with IE still leading though dropping from 70 to 65%
Growth in conservative. UK seems to have a similar trend.
Singapore
About 30% share and growth is conservative.
Malaysia
Growth from 30% up to 40%, with an equal drop in IE share.
This looks like a market where Firefox can overtake IE?
France
very interesting trend. W38 2008 and W26 2009 had a short period where IE use was displaced by Firefox, but IE use was resumed in a few weeks.
Does that mean users in France are open to the idea, but still don't deem Firefox a good replacement yet?
Interestingly Vietnam seems to have a similar trend.
China
IE has 95% share all the way, with a drop recently, giving way not to Firefox, but to Maxthon.
Poland / Finland
Firefox is the most popular browser!
North Korea
Nobody really wins. Only IE, once in a while.
Antartica
Go figure. But firefox seems to be winning?
It would be nice if we could have a world map of the most popular browsers in each country
so we can adjust our expectations when talking to overseas partners...
If you completely miss the '3.5', then it's a reading comprehension problem, not a title problem. The wording isn't misleading at all, in fact it's very precise. And it's quite an important stat too, IE is so fragmented that even the laziest developers will find it hard to target it exclusively (as noted IE versions are quite different).
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
With any luck major websites will simply stop supporting IE6, no matter how loudly its users complain.
Not if they are corporate users paying your bills. IE6 will be around so long as middle management don't have the balls to actually modernise their infrastructure.
All those annoying nerds trying to get them to make more standards compliant websites 5 years ago have already moved on to better jobs. They just dumped the tangled mess of IE6 dependent html-karapware and vacuous developers that worked on it.
In such a situation, it is easier for a big corporation to say "we use IE6, so your systems must support IE6". I know, because I was there, and then I fled.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Given how bloated Emacs is, you're more likely to be able to get Firefox for Emacs.
You jest, good sir, but I have been toiling on just such a foul creation. They said I was crazy, but could a crazy person really embed the Uzbl web browser into Emacs? NO! Those cowards were merely afraid of the infinite power I would wield by putting a browser in Emacs. Think, then, of their horror when they learn that someone put an Emacs clone in the browser.
Behold, the fruit of my demonic labors: Ymacs in Uzbl in Emacs. IT'S ALIVE!!!
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Most Korean websites are designed to only work in IE and since XP is still the OS of choice, most people use IE6.
Many people have this misconception of Korea as being some kind of computer mecca. It is and it isn't. Internet penetration and PC ownership here are much higher, as is the countries investment in all things technology related but I'd venture to say that, like back home, most people here don't really know how to get the most out of their PCs or the internet.
At my job here in Korea I was running Windows 7 and Firefox. The IT guy got wind of this as I use a work laptop that is not my own (though I do take it home) and had me reinstall XP and instructed me not to use Firefox "because it has a lot of viruses." As for Windows 7, he just had no idea what it was and insisted I switch to XP.
Given this attitude in most places, even in the notorious "PC Bangs", I doubt Firefox will be taken up here any time soon. Especially since most Korean websites would need to be redone.
You jest, but I remember the day when the punch card machine came that let you type end edit the 80 column image BEFORE punching the card, instead of punching it as you typed. THAT was a huge leap forward. Many forests were saved.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
In our corp environment we need to print lots of stuff that has frames. IE works, FF does not. So senior management requires IE be the default browser. It is also a pain to update FF if you are not a local admin.
Recently after Google released Chrome browser for Linux I switched to Chrome and you know after using it for one day I switched back to FF. In my opinion FF is ages ahead from Chrome duno about M$ IE coz didn't used in years since moving my butt to Linux :)
http://askaralikhan.blogspot.com/
The only reason this has happened, is because people are migrating from IE7 to IE8, if you look at the graph, firefox is a little over half the combined marketshare of ie 7 & 8, this will change in a month or two as more and more people migrate to ie8.
....
Using the same method as the poster, you can say that ie6 has more market share then Firefox 3
We don't care anymore. You can't forever keep using the excuse that users are tied to their corporate internet and must use IE6. I'll say it again WE DON'T CARE.
I wonder how much of that other is Chrome.
I never understand these comments - up on the right hand corner of slashdot, there's a colored box with nothing interesting, when I look today, yes, it's an advert. But it's beside TFA, which I never read either, cause I've already scanned that from the front page. I just come down here in the comments for the real goodness. Or am I missing something cause I use Opera?
IE still has over 50% of the market, so firefox isn't exactly the most popular browser. Firefox is at 30% and Chrome is already at 5% and its still an infant.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad IE's share is getting smaller and smaller, but Firefox still isn't the most popular browser out there, lets actually accomplish it before we tell everyone we've accomplished it by messaging the data.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I have some web clients in Morocco - they still insist on IE4 !!! compatibility, along with IE5 and IE6, because some of the net cafés are running clients so old that couldn't run FF even if they wanted to. They refuse to update their machines in the cafés, and that's where my clients get a load of their hits from. It's not just corporations are dinosaurs.
Second anecdote: As my mother-in-law has demonstrated for years, running an "obsolete" OS (Win/ME) and browser actually reduces her virus susceptibility. Security through naive, ignorant cheapness - who would've thunk?
I guess its time I switch to Opera.
Ok did anyone follow the link? Clearly IE7 is still the most used browser world wide! Stop spreading lies. I use Firefox 100% but I am into spreading lies about it.
Whelp, now to find a new browser now that firefox is the most popular! Can't have me using what's popular, now can I?
Karma is for whores
Look at the stats for Antarctica
Firefox 3.0 clearly in the lead and just a complete mash of the other contenters...
Great now another 10 years to get people on the much faster Chrome and drop ye slow and a bit bloated FF.
I noticed that of the many PC cafes I've been to (probably at least 50 by now) in Korea, a majority of them are using IE6. Most personal computers I've used, along with office computers I've used within the past year were running IE7.
Firefox/any other browser has no chance in Korea since pretty much all websites require ActiveX. I can't online bank, make online payments, or sometimes even login to a site without using IE.
Just pointing out the first part because a PC cafe would account for around 30-60 PCs running IE6. Now multiply that by having one on every other block.
Do you look also at OSes independent of their version?
Do you have a job actually?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
FireFox is only most popular if you break each browser down to it's version number.
If you conduct an intellectually honest comparison, it's clear that the IE Franchise is still dominant.
FYI, there's a better, fuller Firefox emacsification available with KeySnail.
Firefox has made some great gains on IE and is virtually neck to neck with IE, but it hasn't quite passed it yet. The article should have read for the month of December 2009.
http://techie-buzz.com/firefox/firefox35-not-the-most-used-browser-yet.html
All IE versions are still used more than the double than all Firefox versions. The news is only to that Firefox version... and I'm not sure where is the news here.
I've had more than a few desktops with issues of Firefox 3.5.x causing blue screens of death on Windows 7 64bit. Not sure about other flavors of Windows 7.
Some Googling suggests it's a recent update with Firefox others suggest it's a Firefox / Flash issue. Either way, I was forced to stop allowing the use of Firefox while this issue continues.
IE still makes up 86% of the traffic to sites I control. Firefox just now hit the 10% mark, Safari ranks 3rd at 2.6%. This time last year IE was 89%. Chrome barely makes our charts at 0.5%. Dominant browser? Hardly. I still have 20% of my users running W2k Pro with IE6. I've had to fudge user agents on our proxy because of the warnings so many sites give them. They can't control what machines we give them, and we can't upgrade their hardware because of goverment mandated tax and budget cuts (we are a govermnent office). Running Firefox is impossible due to lack of enterprise support. Call me a m$ fanboi, I still see no benefits of running an alternative browser. Adblock you say? The proxy does the same thing only better.
So long as (stupidly) company internal apps require the browser for "compatibility". It's that way where I work, and it's stupid.
but IE as a whole is still more popular. IT would seem that IE users are simply more splintered on what version they use where as FireFox users (god have mercy on them) are more concentrated within one version.
As the world's last Cello user, I'd just like to point out that at least my browser isn't bloated.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
First, why does market share make any difference at all? I'm not going to use IE ever and no amount of statistics is going to change that.
However, when companies and governments provide products and services they will always target the most popular browsers and they will most definitely include the version number, and that will go on the side of the box.
These figures now mean that I, with my firefox 3.5, will be given the best and earliest consideration when services are provided, followed by those using IE8 - so for instance when I go to buy some thing off a website, my experience will work, while those using IE6 (bless!) will have to suffer (Mwahahahahahaha!!!)
The total figures are just for fanboys who want to claim Microsoft is better than Linux or vice versa or whatever. Good luck to them, I'd rather have stuff that works.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
I'm not sure changed the statistics box from browser version to browser and IE is still top
IE8 and IE7 have 20% each according to TFA
scarier still IE6 has 16%.
All I think this shows is that Firefox users (which make up 32% of the market are more likely to upgrade to the latest version than IE users (who make up 56% of the market)
Sorry but it seems to early to be celebrating victory yet.
PS: How do the compilers of this data cope with people using User Agent Switching.
Most Damage is done by people who are AWAKE
Realistically IE is still leading - when you add up all the IE and FF versions Microsoft is still at 50% dominance, FF trailing with 32%. Plus once Chrome gets a foothold it will sweep up the ranks (eating up the FF share), it loads in half the time of FF. You can't claim victory until the fat lady sings.
http://digg.com/software/World_map_of_most_popular_browsers_by_country_Infographic
Recently I had created this world map showing the most popular browsers by country using the same date.
So you're saying this is a web bug, and we have a FF plugin for those: Ghostery.
Compare the numbers from North America against Europe. See the difference in Europe? That is what you get when you don't have total monopoly. This is why user choice is good.
Of course, if you compare the numbers with Asia, you'll also see the effects of piracy. Another reason software piracy is bad for the rest of us, if they're propping up IE. :-)
I took a quick look at the last 500 records in a weblog I manage. Firefox was way down on the list. At the top was MSIE 7.0 with 130 hits followed by MSIE 8 with 88. Firefox 3.01 had 71 hits, Chrom .02 had 54, Safari 4.03 had 39 hits followed, finally by Firefox 3.5.5 with 36 hits. Sorry I look at real data not someones wish-list.
SG