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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!
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.
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.
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.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Well, checking Google Analytics for one of our websites at work has consistently shown IE6 at "just cranks and a handful of corporate users" levels for a long time now (less than 10%, down to about 5% last month or so). You'll never get rid of it completely, there are still a few nutjobs running Mac OS 9 + IE5 out there, unfortunately a lot of these people will complain loudly when things don't work for them (even though there is no chance whatsoever of most websites supporting their ancient setup).
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
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
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.
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!).
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
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.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
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
Or you could use 'technology' to serve different browsers different versions of the site.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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
Except that IE8 is perfectly capable of emulating both IE6's and IE7's standards-noncompliance modes, in addition to rendering in a proper (albeit lacking some newer features) standards-compliant mode.
There's no excuse. There's less than 250 hours left in this DECADE, so Win2k isn't a valid argument in my books.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Corporate Intranets with lazy admins or dumb policies are Microsoft's best friend.
Fixed
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
FYI the last day of this decade is December 31, 2010, which is a few more than 250 hours. Remember, our calendar uses 1-based math, not 0-based.
That being said, Win2k is still ancient history, as is IE6.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
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.
...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
Haven't you heard? Netcraft is dead.
Umm... Netcraft confirms it?
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
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?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
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...
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
More to the point, the following scenario tends to happen in large corporate IT...
Users: "IE6 is old, slow, and renders pages incorrectly. We'd like to install a more recent browser. As per IT policy, we are raising a support request to install non-standard software or upgrade the corporate standard image."
IT: (thinks) "Bugger, they're asking me to do some work again... hmm..." (types email)
Dear users,
In regard of your requests for Firefox or IE8. As this is a user-requested upgrade, we require you to provide a full cost-benefit analysis of the upgrade, taking into account the impact on our corporate agreements with third party hardware and software suppliers (which we will not reveal to you as they are commercial in confidence), a detailed technical analysis of the impact on all internal software infrastructure (including those under development that we won't tell you about), and the cost of manpower to perform the upgrade using specific IT staff's accurate salaries and overheads (which again we will not reveal to you). The analysis must contain a full twenty-page analysis of the benefits including time-in-motion studies. For brevity, however, the entire document must be no longer than half a page. Please deliver in person, in triplicate, printed on unicorn hide rather than paper (the IT analyst is allergic to most paper bleaches). We will then schedule the upgrade in our next user-requested improvement slot, currently scheduled for the year 5000. No there is not a timecode for your work preparing this analysis.
best regards,
Your helpful IT support team.
FYI the last day of this decade is December 31, 2010
Just like there is a difference between the 20th century (which ended 2000-12-31) and the 1900s (ended 1999-12-31), when talking about decades most people seem to refer to the decade of the 80s as 1980-89, rather than the 199th decade 1981-1990.
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.
While I don't agree with the rosy picture being painted, I think it's fair to say that web developers should (can?) no longer code solely for Internet Explorer. Seeing IE's market share anywhere south of 90% makes it very easy to sell to managers that poor web design will tick off a significant share of their user base.
Back when it was only 5%, very few managers cared. Even at 10%, most would sniff and say "1 in 10" isn't worth the effort to make the site cross-browser. Now we're getting into the 20% range where business types get really uncomfortable with ticking off users.
It's like asking them, "Imagine if you told every 5th customer to walk through that door to shove off?"
Is it good new for Firefox? I think it's more good news for all alternate browsers as a whole. We're almost back to where we were around 2000 where there were many different browsers in use before IE sewed up the market for half a decade.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
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
Corporate Intranets with no budget for upgrades are what keeps IE6 alive.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
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
Baby steps.
It wasn't so long ago when IE had +90% of the worldwide browser usage share. I would have had nothing against IE, if it weren't for its incompatible implementation of web standards and being Windows-only. I believe it is a crime to limit a web site access to users of a certain browser and a certain OS. Probably this is what Microsoft wanted all along, to make the WWW an extension of Windows. I experienced this first hand when some sites, like my bank, were IE-only. Luckily, for me, Wine helped a lot in breaking that barrier. This is less of an issue now, IE8 is better with standards, and the usage share of alternative browsers grew to a point that they can't be ignored.
Also the EU's latest legislation should help level the playing field. I especially like the interoperability bit, and I hope it extends to ensuring IE complies with standards and doesn't introduce proprietary extensions.
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Except that IE8 is perfectly capable of emulating both IE6's and IE7's standards-noncompliance modes, in addition to rendering in a proper (albeit lacking some newer features) standards-compliant mode.
I recently spent some time in Korea, working on-site for a customer who you will have heard of.
We had to set up our machine with their ghastly intranet security software. After realising that their intranet portal only works with IE due to stupid stuff like missing Javascript onClick handlers, we started the installation procedure and the requisite four reboots. It failed weirdly after reboot #3.
After some time trying to make it work, we discovered that their security software is not compatible with IE8.
Unfortunately our sysadmin is quite efficient, which means that the Windows installation had IE8 slipstreamed into it. This meant it couldn't be removed. And you can't install IE7 on a machine with IE8 on it. Which meant that the only way to progress was to reinstall Windows, from scratch, using an XP CD that the customer lent us.
...which turned out to have a virus on it.
</pissed off>
Alright - let's be fair, please.
I've been Rickrolled with Firefox on Linux, and I've also been hijacked by those sites that tell me about infections on C:/ and ask me to click "yes" to install an antivirus to clean up my infections. Firefox on Linux, no less.
But, in each case, it is the extension which enabled malicious script to redirect me. I don't think that Firefox was at fault, but I was. Mozilla never asked me to install a bunch of crap on top of their browser. If we are going to point fingers, I think we need to point fingers at Macromedia, at javascript, and some of those lesser known extensions and scripts.
As your own post points out, configuration means everything. If I sit down at a computer at work, I can't download ANYTHING with the default browser, which is IE7. I have to log in as admin, or use a browser installed on a USB to download ANYTHING.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Some Googling suggests it's a recent update with Firefox others suggest it's a Firefox / Flash issue.
A userspace application cannot cause a BSOD (kernel panic). This is strictly a driver issue, video most likely. Of course it can be triggered by Firefox/Flash/whatever combo, but the bug is still in the driver.