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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).
Its not really that surprising. You have some users who saw what "upgrading" to Vista did to XP, and won't upgrade any software, especially if it switches to a totally different look. You have lots of corporate users, you also have people on pre-XP systems which IE 6 is the latest version of IE for them. Even Windows 2000 only has IE 6 as the most recent version of IE.
And while IE 6 may be archaic, if you have an intranet based on people using IE 6 that IE 7+, Firefox or another browser breaks, you either have to upgrade the entire intranet or keep IE 6 around.
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Statcounter also plots that, fwiw. (Click on the dropdown box after "Statistic:" at the bottom-left of the graph to get other views and data sets as well.)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
When I first saw the option on Slashdot's main page to turn off ads I was a tad croggled. I'd been using Firefox with AdBlock + for so long I'd forgotten that there were ads on Slashdot.
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I fail to see all good news for Firefox on that page. Or, should I say that I don't see all good news for consumers.
Together, IE6, IE7 and IE8 still dominate the market. I'm afraid that will remain true for a couple more years, no matter how much pressure the rest of the world puts on the market. Separating the versions of the various browsers just clutters the picture.
If I may, I'll point out that I'm partly color blind. It's tough to see that chart. It's hard to see the "real picture". What is literally true for me, is figuratively true for those who are working so hard to track browser usage.
Is there a page that tracks usage, which lumps IE (all versions), Firefox (all versions) Opera (all versions) etc?
Ahhhhh, here we go: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-weekly-200827-200951
Yes indeed. Global domination by Firefox is indeed getting closer - but not this year, and probably not next year. Let's give it between 3 and 5 years, alright?
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Except that IE8 is perfectly capable of emulating both IE6's and IE7's standards-noncompliance modes.
Nope, IE8 does not emulate IE6, which is the chief problem here. (It does emulate IE5, however.)
In fact, CSS2 that "works" in IE6 is almost guaranteed to break in IE8 or any other modern browser.
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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.
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Using the same method as the poster, you can say that ie6 has more market share then Firefox 3