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Firefox May Soon Overtake IE In Europe
peterkern writes "The July browser market share reports are somewhat inconsistent, but if we believe StatCounter, then it looks like Firefox will be overtaking Microsoft IE's market share next month. The two browsers are both within 1 point of 40% market share, IE above and Firefox below. Europeans are more crazy about Firefox than Americans: In Germany, Firefox has a 61% market share, while IE has only 25%. Google Chrome is, according to StatCounter, now above 10%. ConceivablyTech has more details, including market share data from both StatCounter and Net Applications (which as of this month is limiting its free data)."
as long as other browsers have a big enough market share that MS has to continue play nice and follow standards it's not even that important.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
Of course this is all irrelevant to firefox making history by overtaking IE in Europe. An analogy, many parts of the world have universal healthcare but it would still be history for the USA if it was introduced there.
It's getting harder and harder for Steve Ballmer to point to his resume and be able to justify his work over the past decade. While Microsoft has pushed out upgrades to all its software, the big picture is gloomy enough to make him sweat at upcoming board meetings: total loss to the ipod in the music market, total catastrophe in Microsoft's internally-competing music formats and platforms (Plays for Sure?), impending catastrophe in smart phones as RIM, Apple, and now Android eat his lunch, and growing irrelevance of desktop office software. Yes, they skirted disaster with Vista and pushed out Windows 7 which is generally well liked. But Microsoft is slipping behind in key growth markets and lack of vision and leadership is a big part of that.
If I were on the Board, I'd be telling Ballmer to go work on his golf game, and bring in new leadership. Microsoft has lots of talented developers and engineers. But upper management is sinking the ship.
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
And Firefox has succeeded in doing what it was really meant to do - getting rid of the hell that was IE6. As long as microsoft keep trying to imporve their implementation of standards, then I don't care if people use IE or not. Personally, I use Firefox because of NoScript, AdBlock and DownThemAll, and the fact it has a master password for it's password database (unlike Chrome).
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
I'm hoping the big change comes as corporations replace IE6. Moving to IE8 puts them in almost the same position they're in now 5 years down the road with respect to standards compliance, tie-in to the OS, etc, but it seems that's what most are doing. Perhaps some of them will have learned something.
In Germany, Firefox has a 61% market share, while IE has only 25%.
And a huge part of that is companies that are suffering from Microsoft lock-in. Seriously, when I see people's private computers, be it friends or people at the airport, etc. - it is probably 80% or more Firefox. In most of the companies, however, IE is still the corporate standard, and quite often the only allowed browser.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I use opera instead. I find IE just as much security issue prone as IE.
To offer a counter argument, from my personal experience I've found Opera to be as much of a security issue as Opera.
Could this be highly related to the fact that in Europe, as part of an anti-trust settlement, when you first log into a new Windows machine you are presented with a choice of internet browsers and no longer default to MSIE?
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Have you noticed that Europe has a much bigger uptake of Linux, Firefox and in the older days Amiga?
I've often wondered if this is Europe being "open minded"....
I would love to be able to say the same about Australia...
AC
Really, selling online I've noticed that Europeans are terrible consumers. They don't listen well to our support staff, they immediately charge back if the service is not up to par, etc. etc. It's a hell dealing with Europeans.
If you're looking to make money, honestly, invest in US consumers first. Much easier to part them from their money and to convince them not to cancel/buy more.
So what you're saying is that we're less gullible and more demanding? Why thank you, that's really nice of you.
I'll let you get back to assraping ignorant 'merkins now ;-)
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Those sites should not make their ads annoying. Google text adds are fine most of the time, unless page has crapton of them. Discrete page fitting ads are fine as-well. But you cant really live without an ad blocker on today's web where certain ads scream at you and prevent you from focusing on the content. It's visual mostly, but some people still haven't gotten the memo about self playing voice adds being a bad thing...
I was really hoping for an analogy using the metric system.
A CEO is looking for a new CFO for his company. He invites an engineer, a mathematician and a statistician for a group interview. The CEO asks, "How much is two plus two?" The engineer pulls out his calculator, punches it in, and says, "Four!"
The mathematician goes to the whiteboard, and scribbles down a proof, and says, "This proves that two plus two is four!"
The statistician, leans forward to the CEO, and whispers, "How much do you want two plus two to be?"
Microsolt, Sun, Oracle, IBM, Dell, HP, SAP etc. all do this: They will create a different definition for what comprises their market, and then they all claim to be the market leader.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
If Oracle keeps acting like retards. I work for an engineering college at a university. If you know anything about engineering they it'll come as no surprise we are a Solaris and Windows shop. Solaris has a heavy legacy, it was doing high end work before other things could, and even today there are products that are Solaris only (though they could be ported to other OSes, they just aren't). While I won't say Solaris is problem free, I see the value in it. There is a difference between a real enterprise UNIX and Linux, loathe though Linux heads might be to admit it.
However we are currently in the process of getting rid of as much of it as we can. We are cutting it down to 4 essential servers and that number will likely go down further, perhaps to just one. Why? Because Oracle has decided to be complete fucks when it comes to licensing. So you already pay heavy maintenance on these SPARC systems. We could buy a new x86 server per year for the cost of maintenance on most of these things. Now that's not enough, they want to charge for Solaris patches, and they want to charge a lot. Oh, and should you ever stop paying they not only do you no longer get patches you are required, and I'm not making this up, to UNINSTALL all patches you've installed.
That's right, they are extorting you: You have to pay a yearly per server fee, or have a vulnerable system.
Well fuck that. We are getting rid of that shit post haste. Going to be Windows and Linux for as much as we can do. In the end I expect we'll need a single SPARC system to run the few apps that run on nothing else but that's it.
Guess what? If Oracle continues strategies like that with regards to other products, you'll find that MS will just gain more marketshare.
Sites must find ways to profit. The mission of a browser (or any app) is providing the best user experience, and ad block is part of this. You cannot stop technology development and adoption just because some guys don't know how to make money.
Don't worry, eventually the metric system will take over the USA, inch by inch.
Oracle is seriously screiny us around as well.
I hate to say this but DB2 looks more attractive from a pricing point of view every day.
That coupled with the insance price increases in WebLogic and Solaris, makes us seriously consider not buying anything more from Oracle/BEA/Sun.
We are already moving many critical systems to Linux on X86-64 Blades (Currently HP but maybe IBM in the future).
Oracle don't give a toss. All they want is more and more every month.
Oh grasshopper, allow your old and wise pal Hairyfeet to explain the ways that led to the garden of evil.
You see young one, once upon a time there was this thing called ActiveX. And in this naive and innocent time, when the web was young and the word bukkake was unknown in the west, the developers at Redmond pushed ActiveX as "everything you ever wanted...in a box!" it could build Rich Internet Apps, and turn even the hardest job into a simple form even sally in the typing pool could do. And even trained monkeys could write for ActiveX! And you know what? It was true! Oh how young and foolish everyone was! Every PHB on the block joined right in, and all thought it was well.
Unfortunately there was a REASON why ActiveX was so damned easy, and that was because it blew a hole right through the OS the size of a Peterbuilt. It turned out that trained monkeys also existed in China and Russia, and thanks to security not being taught the day the ActiveX guys were at school it quickly turned craptastic. MSFT, after getting laughed at and having rotten fruit thrown at them wisely treated ActiveX like the red headed stepchild and tried to quietly bash its brains out and bury it in the backyard. Sadly waaaay too many PHBs had bought into ActiveX Intranet apps, and found out that IE 6= works, and IE anything else =toast. But PHBs, being a rather stupid lot, decided that rather than spend the money to rewrite their Intranet would simply keep IE 6 4EVAR BWA HA HA HA HA!
So there you have it my son, the reason why a crappy browser nobody really liked is still used day, after day, after day, after day. It is because PHBs are stupid, more crappy Intranet ActiveX sites exist than you'd care to know (I even know of a few that still use IE 6 ActiveX based sites for processing CC info of their customers EEEK!) and until XP is quietly pushed out on that iceflow to die IE 6 will continue to slowly lumber on.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
>>>many parts of the world have universal healthcare
Monopoly healthcare. No choice healthcare.
Oh and yeah you're right. The article is about making history in EUROPE, because it would be the first time since Netscape that IE was not #1. The fact Opera is #1 in the former Soviet Republics is irrelevant to European browser share.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Yes but the point is, there are now sufficient users running browsers other than IE that you have to develop for them...
The funny thing is that when Firefox had a similar market share to what IE6 has now, lots of sites said "screw it, this site only works in Internet Explorer". Adding support for Firefox was easy; just write a reasonably standards-compliant site and it looked ok in Firefox. Now developers have a much harder job trying to make sites work in IE6, yet you rarely see sites just rejecting it.
I still find the occasional site telling me I have an unsupported browser (Yahoo is one of them, which is pretty hilarious in 2010). HP blade enclosures "support" Firefox by asking you to install the IE tab extension.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Monopoly healthcare. No choice healthcare.
Only if you believe the drivel forced down your neck by the US media.
Government healthcare is NOT monopoly healthcare or "no choice healthcare". Here in the UK I have the option of being treated on the NHS (government) or I can go private, it is entirely up to me.
Here are some useful links to anyone interested in private healthcare in the UK:
http://www.spirehealthcare.com/
http://www.bupa.co.uk/
http://www.privatehealth.co.uk/
Unfortunately I still have to pay for the government healthcare out of my taxes but that is not what you were complaining about at all was it?
I dont read
But here in Germany we have more than enough problems with our costly health system. Politicians are trying to reform it for at least a decade, because a breakdown has been imminent for decades. So I don't think, it is an example of a good health care system.
Why is it that a bewildering number of smart people has been indoctrinated into believing that the "free market" is the only solution to everything?
If the cost benefit ratio is less for a market-based solution compared to an alternative solution, then maybe it's time to go with the alternative.
By all metrics, the US healthcare system is delivering comparable medical outcomes to other industrialized nations at about 2 times the cost.
It is beyond debate that a completely laissez faire approach to markets ultimately leads to distortions that prevent efficient resource distribution in most (if not all) sectors of the economy. The is just no reason to object based on the facts, yet people still object. Funny this ideology thing.....
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Indeed, Korea really loves their activex. It's so bad that you really can't use the Korean Internet without activex. One example: try to even see the front page of one of Koreas major banks without ie: www.kdb.co.kr
$130,000 is the public debt of the government.
The average personal debt is about $80,000 per US home. Total would then then be $210,000 public plus personal debt. That exceeds the UK and probably every other civilized country.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
That's partly because the US sucks at regulating anti-competitive practices.
$ make available
You can get some amazingly high end MSSQL servers these days. I've never had occasion but I do have a couple friend who work at places that do. You can get an HP Superdome 2 with 2TB of RAM and MSSQL will use it, given a large enough database. When you get the Datacenter versions of Windows and SQL Server you find that it has all the heavy hitting features you expect from a high end database. It scales to obscene levels and can handle massive reliability requirements.
I'm told that Oracle can go further still... But then how many people need that? For most people, even though with very high end needs, MSSQL is a real contender. Nobody is going to call it cheap, but then it is cheaper than Oracle and MS doesn't fuck you on pricing or support. You pay a hefty fee for Windows and MSSQL, but that's all you have to pay and you are guaranteed updates for a certain period of time, which they may choose to extend (Windows is generally supported for 10 years minimum from release, SQL server for 9 years).
Of course as you noted there's also DB2, and for lower end applications free stuff like MySQL and Postgres.
Have you ever set up a transparent proxy? No need to configure each machine individually. Just all port 80 traffic is routed through to your proxy.
Such work is simplicity itself as well: set up your DHCP to return a set of variable/value pairs and you can set your network however you want.
NOTHING to configure for each installation. Just set your server with the right rules.
AD server is a hammer looking for a nail. And you're getting screwed.
Because my dog just had surgery (which included a hysterectomy, an RFID cyber-implant, and 4 baby teeth pulled) for a total cost of $200. That is what health care costs (with a reasonable markup to cover overhead and profit). With humans, I understand if people want to include some additional safeguards, so maybe multiply that cost by n (where I'm thinking of a number like two or three, not a hundred!), and that tells you the potential that a free market has to offer the problem of health care.
Likewise, I can look at the cost of a hotel room in a free market ($50-$200; I know this varies wildly depending on where it is) plus the cost of a well-trained expert (say $75/hour, except amortized across several customers, just like doctors and nurses work in real life) and that tells you what a hospital room can cost.
When you think about these numbers and compare them to what we currently pay, I wonder how people can not desperately want a free market.
You know what? I'll concede that; free markets aren't perfect. But can a market planned by government (i.e. lobbyists) have so little distortion?
Why are people upholding US health care as some kind of example of free markets? If the US had a free market for health care, we would all be bitching about how Wal-Mart surgeons are squeezing the mom'n'pops out of business. Doctors would be complaining that it's hard to repay their student loans on their $20/hour job, yet not quite impossible since, after all, the student loan is only for about $5000 * years_in_school.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"I was really hoping for an analogy using the metric system."
I, on the other hand, was hoping for a car analogy.
Yes, like the road system, and the fire service, and the military.
You can choose never to drive on the roads if you walk everywhere, but your taxes still pay for them since the society you live in requires certain things (like the ability for trucks to deliver things to the town you live in).
You may not directly consume the services you pay for with your "monopoly" taxes, but you surely are not foolish enough to think that no government is a better option, or a government that cannot levy taxes. Part of being in a society is that you can do a lot that helps everyone for a little input from the individual.
You can try to be isolationist if you like and live off the grid because you don't want a "monopoly" taking your money, but then don't complain to me when you can't get mail delivered to you, can't get food delivered to where you live, or electricity, or water, or education for your children. If your house catches fire, don't complain when the fire department doesn't show up to put it out, on the road that the state built, using water piped there via state-owned water pipes. Don't complain when then police don't attempt to recover your stolen car and instead tell the local private security firm you hired to look after your local community to do it.
A nation of 260 million individuals who solely looked out for number 1 would very quickly descend into chaos.
Also, your attempt to draw literal parallels between a monopoly position of a company and that of a tax is just amusing. The concepts are different, and you are being deliberately disingenuous. If you are genuinely serious, then I just feel sorry for you.