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Firefox 3.5 Now the Most Popular Browser Worldwide

Posted by kdawson on from the press-the-advantage dept.

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).

5 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. StatCounter? by gzipped_tar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:StatCounter? by dakameleon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      Statcounter uses an image as a fallback for getting stats where the cookie is blocked or Javascript cannot be run, so unless you've blocked all third party images (how's the text web going for you, tinfoil hat man?) it still shows up.

      --
      Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
  2. Re:IE6? Really? by rrohbeck · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I see "This site requires Internet Explorer 6" on our Intranet all the time. Peoplesoft for example, urgh.
    Of course, the site will run perfectly with Firefox if I change the user agent string.

    Corporate Intranets with lazy admins or dumb policies are what keeps IE6 alive.

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    thegodmovie.com - watch it
  3. Re:An interesting way to summarize the data ... by Zerth · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not to mention that IE8's growth seems to be exclusively at the expense of 6/7 so IE as a whole has declined greatly, or the market has grown while IE use has remained constant.

  4. Non uniform adoption across countries? by zlel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...