Firefox Browser On An Upward Trend

carbolic writes "The Firefox browser is ramping up as fast as Internet Explorer is ramping down. According to these stats posted from the Engadget logfiles, IE has dropped to 57% of all browsers used to visit the site, while Firefox is up to an amazing 18%! The Engadget stats reflect an early-adopter consumer crowd and backing those up, this chart from w3schools shows the same trend. I guess CERT's recommendation and a mature product are finally paying off for the Mozilla project. Less than 2 years ago, IE had a 95% lock on the market. Anyone else see a trend here?"

Hmmmm

[squall14716]

95% to 57% on one site? Trend? Where?

As much as I'd like this to be true...

[psyklopz]

The logfiles for a single site can hardly be used as proof of an overall trend throughout the Internet.

Microsoft's site can probably claim higher numbers of IE users.

RedHat's site can probably claim lower numbers of IE users

Engadget?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great choice of site to sample all browsers. (not)

C'mon

[indros13]

By the same logica, if a Slashdot poll showed 33% of respondents used Linux, you could claim that Linux is seriously threatening Windows (and that the CowboyNeal OS has 10% market share). It's a self-selecting crowd. When a techie website shows high Firefox use, it's because techies are more likely to try alternatives--we actually know of them.

I'm waiting for the CNN/Gallup Poll

Re:Firefox desserves this...

[ack154]

But you have to give the developers time to update their extensions/themes for the new release. Yesterday, the only one of mine that worked was AdBlock (the best one) and then today there was already an update for FoxyTunes - so the work is getting done, you just have to be patient. :)

Ah, but this isn't (e.g.) visitors to AOL.com...

[darien]

As the article says, this is a survey of "as tech savvy an audience as you could have." While it's exciting to see tech savvy people getting more and more switched-on to Firefox, we could flip it around and say that more than half of even the most tech-savvy users are still using IE. And with the SP2 pop-up blocker and security improvements they have fewer reasons to change than ever.

Just thinking obvious thoughts out loud.

Re:As much as I'd like this to be true...

[bonniot]

Obviously different websites have different audiences, so the raw numbers have little significance unless you take a large sample of websites. However, it's the trend [mozillazine.org] that is important here, and it seems to be consistently positive for gecko on various websites.

Re:Not more people

[Rysc]

Yes. Look at recent changelogs: They're patching /potential/ vulnerabilities and removing ambiguities to make it harder to annoy/confuse people. They're doing this BEFORE it becomes a big problem. Microsoft may know the potential exists, but they wait until their entire user base is up in arms before releasing an update. The Firefox folks notice the potential and head it off. Because of the whole "there are daily builds" thing, likely you'll see patches merged for any serious exploit within a few days, ready for enterprising people to download. And if you don't think average people go for nigthlies: at least with Firefox official releases are damned frequent, not once every six to eighteen months, as with IE.

Re:Not more people

[Jarnis]

It's obiviously a challenge, but considering that most IE vulnerabilities are linked to the tight coupling of OS and browser (and the stupid ActiveX), Firefox offers fewer points of attack for the l33t hax0rs to poke holes at. Yes, there will be vulnerabilities, but I expect a lot fewer than with MS products.

All Mozilla/Firefox now needs is a good update system. Normal users have already been teached by MS that everything magically gets updated via Windows Update. Not so with the browser - if they use something other than IE.

Yes, advanced users hate autoupdates. So what, they can always be disabled. Firefox and Mozilla need builtin autoupdaters that at least point the user to a page when a new update is available. Or preferrably just go ahead and do the update by default. That way people can browse safely even as new exploits crop up.

No trend

[doktorstop]

FireFox is a fantastic product, no doubts about that. But I would really doubt that logs from one site can be used as an argument for an overall trend. The Microsoft website probably has 95-98% of all the hits generated by IE. RedHat, SuSE and Slashdot would have a bigger share of Konqueror, FireFox and Netscape users.... even Lynx =)

There is no point to generalise the results of one log... plus keep in mind that more and more browsers nowadays can "lie" about their identity... just say that FireFox is worth a try, and don't push it any further!

How about some less self-selecting data.

[gowen]

Such as this, [google.com] gathered by general purpose search engine, Google, in June. Specifically, this graph. [google.com] That "Other" category is not exactly setting the world on fire, is it now?

Slashdot hits a new low with this one..

[guacamole]

This article is an example of sensassionalist reporting. Sorry but this is not a true random sample. Their sample was apparently restricted to the visitors of some tech-savy web site which, by the way, I have never heard about before. So the article title is _very_ misleading. I am sure you can also obtain a staggering numbers showing that Firefox and Linux usage is on rise by examining access logs for something like sourceforge.net. I don't see any trend here at all.

self fullfilling prophecy

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, Firefox people will go read the site, there by pushing the points up more.

Most IE users (that I know) are pretty much ignorant when it comes to browsers.

Re:Firefox desserves this...

[biglig2]

Ah, but be fair, it's not at 1.0 quite yet.

IE and FF

[gad_zuki!]

>Microsoft state no more development on IE

Actually IE on an XP box running SP2 is pretty different. This may not be a formal version change but MS did catch up pretty well. Sure, I don't touch IE unless I have to, but the popup blocker, activex manager, extra nag screens, etc go a long way to fighting spyware and help make the web usable. Most people will never switch browsers and SP2 is for them.

I was playing with 1.0PR last night and found the firebird developers have already mimicked IE. The "info bar" [everythingisnt.com] which displays when something is blocked is blatantly "stolen" from IE. Not that I care or even think its wrong, but its interesting to see the browser war heat up again.

MS is catching up to FF while FF is picking what it likes from IE. I do like FF's policy of "looking a lot like IE" because it helps with mass-adoptation and frankly IE's interface and MS's usability are actually pretty good. Its a shame the code beneath isn't so hot.

A growing trend?

[drspliff]

Although Firefox is gaining popularity the fact is: IE 6 is the #1 browser. Until we (a combination of the open source community, and regular users) can pursuade a lot of ignorant web developers (dont get me wrong, not all web developers are stupid and ignorant, just a small minority that only design for IE) - then the web can still be a hostile environment for non-microsoft users.

<rant> Personally I've been an Opera user for a few years (but reguarly use Mozilla/Firefox, Netscape 4 & IE to check the compatibility of my sites), and I was shocked when I went to a site that said 'You have to download the latest version of IE to view this site'... Sure.. I can run IE in wine, but some people really don't think when developing sites. </rant>

Re:Firefox desserves this...

[drmancini]

This has been discussed on many /. threads regarding firefox ... The main reason for extension incompatibility between point releases is that Firefox hasn't yet reached the 1.0 release mark ...

Meaning ... your criticism would have been relevant for Firefox 1.+ ... but not now

Re:Not more people

[Karma Star]

> Normal users have already been teached by MS
Who teached you your english?

On a more serious note, I'd have to agree that firefox seriously needs an automatic update system that doesn't invalidate a user's extensions.

Re:C'mon

[Sindri]

No, by this logic two slashdot polls showed the number of Linux users double you could claim Linux was gaining on Windows.

RTFS!

Re:A growing trend?

[l0wland]

Until we can pursuade a lot of ignorant web developers

What helps for me so far (100% score until now): If you find an IE-only website, make a screendump of what the website looks like in FireFox, and mail it to the sales- or marketing-dept of the company. You can be sure they contact their developer/ site-maintainer about it.

If you contact the "developer" directly, you can end in a yes/no battle about W3C, so get to the guys with the money instead

Re:So What?

[balazsa]

Are you serious? In fact the potetial loss rather the control over the dominant client platform. Just think a bit about what you get with proper completely cross platform GUI rendering engine with nice development bindings and wide install base. Just take a look on this [sourceforge.net].

Re:Firefox desserves this...

[WankersRevenge]

if that be the truth, then the mozilla folks should market firefox as a developers release, instead of pushing it to all users. I mean, Firefox is the first thing you notice when you arrive at mozilla.org. You shouldn't treat Firefox as a polished app, and then pull out the old "it's pre version 1" speak when critcism abounds. It only frustrates users.

One teensey advantage of IE

[otter42]

I love Firefox, and I've convinced practically everyone in two residence halls to switch over to it. However, there's one little capability I miss from IE. Dockable toolbars. I like that fact that I can put the File_Edit_View_etc... menu on the same line as the address bar in IE. It uses some otherwise completely wasted space.

I mean, come on, take a gander at Firefox when it's in full screen. You precious $1500 MacCinema TFT gets a 1cm swath taken out of it by nothing but grey pixels.

Still, Firefox is awesome, and it'll be a long time before I consider anything else.

P.S. How long before Firefox becomes the monoculture? I mean, it's great that everyone's switching to a product which is decent, doesn't invite spyware in with cookies and milk, and is open source, but still... Monocultures are bad, even when they're good, right?

Re:Workaround

[otter42]

It didn't work for my Tabbrowser Extensions!

Maybe I'm just stupid, but Tabbrowser Extensions is singlehandedly the best extension available, IMHO. Why isn't it even on the mozilla extension site? Is there someway to control the tabs without TE? Specifically the oh-so-annoying way that firefox by default sticks new tabs at the end instead of right next to the parent?

are you kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been seeing Firefox all over the last couple months. Maybe I just deal with more different people/computers than the average Slashdotter, but there's no mistaking that a lot of people are trying out Firefox and pretty much ditching IE.

Naturally the trend indicated by logfiles will be more exagerated on a site that caters to tech-savvy users/early adopters--this isn't exactly a secret if you RTFA. Please read the article and links before rushing in with an inane first post. I wish the moderators would read too before modding up drivel like the parents.

Re:Firefox desserves this...

[schvenk]

I agree in part, but I think politically (as someone who'd like to see as many decent IE alternatives as possible) I'm glad they did it that way. Firefox has been an excellent alternative to IE even as a 0.x release. My guess is that most users don't use extensions all that often, so in terms of less technical folks I doubt it's been a big deal.

And maybe if we keep telling ourselves it's true..

[briancnorton]

Geez, it's not even april first.

Does anybody really believe that the 95%+ market share of IE is going to drop to 57% in a few months? We can advocate and yell and scream and whatever we want, but people ain't switching in big numbers.

Re:Firefox desserves this...

[Jugalator]

if that be the truth, then the mozilla folks should market firefox as a developers release, instead of pushing it to all users.

It's the truth, and it's pushed as a "Preview Release" and a "Technology Preview". So they should expect about as much as a public beta version of IE from it. :-P

You shouldn't treat Firefox as a polished app, and then pull out the old "it's pre version 1" speak when critcism abounds. It only frustrates users.

Yeah, and it frustrates people with insight of the Firefox status if people whine about pre-1.0 software that's released for preview purposes (says so right on the Mozilla.org front page).

Google's browser stats

[carlmenezes]

Now, THAT would be a good indication

Re:Hmmmm

[Denny]

Again, you've got a warped sample group there... wikipedia was originally promoted in geek circles (most particularly, right here on /.), and there's still a strong bias toward the technically literate on there... meaning more people who don't use IE.

Re:Hmmmm

[Mick Ohrberg]

Just goes to show you - all you need to do to defeat Microsoft is to release something better. And release it for free.

Re:Slashdot Stats?

[bogie]

Showing that most users here run Windows and IE isn't exactly the best PR for one of the most popular pro-Linux sites on the net. You'll never see logfiles from here. Although like most tech sites I'd venture a guess that *zilla products would make up a very small yet growing part of vistors.

IE's dominance

[BlueThunderArmy]

For all the "early adopters," I would be willing to bet there are 100 "never adopters," people who accept technology the way it is packaged and if it doesn't work well, too bad, that's just how computers are. As IE is packaged with (and an integral part of) Windows, and Windows machines make up somewhere around 90% of consumer machines, I don't see IE's market share dipping much below 90% for the general public, regardless of better (free) options. Most people simply won't take the time to download IE alternatives when they've already got a web browser.

Re:Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Your site mainly services professionals(?). These these professionals are likely using your site from work (how does your traffic profile change during the day? peak with target audience's work hours?). Since your site has mostly professionals, it could be reasoned that they use their employers machines. And their employers are probably not moving to Firefox just yet.

Re:So What?

[SenseiLeNoir]

True, the loss to MS is zero in ONLY the browser space. In other spaces, the loss may be FAR greater.

Microsoft didnt make IE out of the goodness of their hearts, they paid staff, millions of hours of development time, a court case with the DOJ, to get this "free" browser out. And we know MS doesnt give things away unless they are either goign to earn profit somewhere else, or to prevent loss occuring somewhere else.

going back to 1996/1997, Microsoft realised that Netscape, the dominant browser at the time, were slowly morphing from "Just a Browser" into something that together with Java resembles an OS. It was a platform that allowed applications to be delivered over the net, making the core OS irrelevent. Have a look at archived docs about Netscape's Aurora, and you will understand why MS was scared.

Secondly the Java & HTML can be developed by MOST students for free. You only needed a Text Editor, a paint package and a freely obtainable JDK. There is no relatively "simple" ways to create windows applications for free. This was the reason why Microsoft gave away Visual Basic Active X edition for free, to get people less intrested in Java, and create More MS centric solutions.

Therefore dont assume that there is no value to MS from Internet Explorer. It is core to them. They only got a bit of a breathing space because fo the Dot Com bust, didnt create as much intrest for Web Applications as originally thought.

Obligatory Mastercard Parody:
- development time: 10000 Man hours
- Cost of development: $1million
- Sending SP2 free to anyone who asks: $1 per CD

Mahing the Windows/Office/Visual Studio triopoly maintained, and seeing Netspace and many other compeitors ground to dust - PRICELESS.

Re:Not more people

[globalar]

By far, the biggest security problem in Windows/IE is that most users run with full priveleges (as an Administrator, like root). Forget any type of sandbox, that kind of default access lends itself to security problems.

Re:Not more people

[petrus4]

>Yes, advanced users hate autoupdates. So what, >they can always be disabled.

Depends on the auto-update program. An app which simply wants to wrest control of my system out of my hands for the time it takes to update something, as well as not giving much feedback or telling me a huge amount about what it is doing is obnoxious, and I won't use it.

Give me an updater however which lets me choose what I want to download, shows me the commands it uses, (and lets me tweak them if I know what I'm doing, no less) shows me on the screen everything it does while it does it, (including progress indicators, etc) and then generates a meticulous log at the end of it, (so that I know the program isn't sending my info anywhere it shouldn't, and also so that I can fault find if something goes wrong) and I'm sold. A program like that makes my life easier, without violating my right to decide what does/doesn't happen on my computer.

Re:Workaround

[egghat]

Featurewise it is abolutely brilliant. But it made Firefox behaven like Netscape 4.02: Slow and unstable like a super nova.

I'm looking for a replacement.

Bye egghat.

Re:Opera? That isn't dead yet?

[Blitzenn]

You must have done something wrong if your comment didn't get posted. Everything is posted, even flame comments.

Opera is argueable a robust and stable browser. However, in the face of IE and Mozilla providing a free browser WITHOUT annoying advertising embedded in it, I don't see much of a future for Opera. The new Mozilla browser also has a great leg up on the Opera browser too by not interfering with the operation of an existing installation of IE. That was a big netscape problem and is a major complaint of people who try the Opera browser. Ditch the forced ads and the interference problems with competeing platforms and they might survive.

Re:Firefox desserves this...

[Anonymous Coward]

hate to break it to ya, but Firefox has been around for nearly two years now. i took a (crappy) web dev class (easy A) and one of the browsers we "tested" was Phoenix. That class started in December of 2002.

Re:Hmmmm

[Dashing Leech]

Mozilla should be the one being used by web developers.

Wouldn't web developers be most likely to use IE. After all, if it is the most used browser (perhaps still >90%) then it is in a company's best interest to make sure their website works properly in IE and not spend time making things working Mozilla if it works find in IE. There was much discussion on this regarding the lack of IE PNG alpha blending support [slashdot.org].

I'm not saying this is a good thing, I'm just saying it seems to be the business attitude. There isn't much financial benefit in spending time to make their website compliant with a browser that has 5% market share if the site is fine in the browser with 95% market share. I do find this shortsighted though, since Mozilla/Firefox could be the dominant browser in, say, 6 months for example. Then all these companies would need to re-do their websites at extra cost so it would have been cheaper to make it compliant in the first place.

Well, why is this suprising?

[borud]

IE has not kept up with development and all the other browsers are bloated or bloating. for some reason people have a really hard time understanding that a browser should be a browser and it doesn't matter if all the extra features don't really enlarge its footprint (which is mostly rather irrelevant) -- what matters is that it takes focus away from the work that really needs to be done.

besides, if you want extra gadgetry in your browser, Firefox has a lot of nice extensions and they are extremely easy to install(1).

--------
1) Except for the fact that the the response times from the extension download is horribly slow. Do something about it!

lame statistic

[robotoil]

How about trying a site that really matters to the average user. I have seen zip Mozilla usage inside my company, and a lot of developers there too. what are the stats to microsoft.com? lol. please. I'd really like to see the stats to marthastewart.com. Then we can talk.

Firefox gets faster, IE gets slower

[xot]

I think the key is, people are losing patience.Everyone wants a faster browser which hangs less and eats less memory.IE fails in both.With every new version its getting slower, takes more memory , has more security flaws.
Whereas FireFox gets more efficient, has all the features that IE has(infact more) and uses much less memory.The browsing experience is smooth and fast.
A lot of people are hesitant to move to FireFox cos they don't know what it has to offer and Windows ships with IE so it naturally captures most of the market.With just the right kind of exposure FireFox will bloom even more.

Re:And maybe if we keep telling ourselves it's tru

[jrcamp]

So what do you want, no change at all? Sure it's a small dent in IE's market share, but on the other hand it is a large boost to the number of users using Mozilla/Firefox. The whole wolrd isn't going to switch at once. Like everything else, it will be a gradual process. Don't act like just because not everybody switches today means it's a failure.

Mass adoptation won't come...

[HerculesMO]

Until FireFox offers a centralized way to update. That is to say, in an organization that would roll out FireFox en masse, if a security update arises, there needs to be a secure method of pushing out that update to the end-user of the browser. Believe me when I say it, the VP of Information Systems (my boss) at my job was a proponent of an 'alternative' browser being used instead of IE. He had looked at Opera and I showed him Firefox (less impactful change for end-users) but at the time, Mozilla released a single fix for Firefox's security, and he asked how it would happen if everybody needed an update. If Mozilla can solve that problem with security in mind with PUSHING the updates -- we are going to be in seriously good shape in a year or so. Companies can adopt and push the mainstream users to use it. After all, people use IE because "it's what I use at work" or at least, it's a good enough excuse for a lot of people.

Re:Hmmmm

[BrokenHalo]

Hmmm again. There are still many who persist in setting their user-agent sessions to spoof an IE client. In other words, the figures are skewed before you even look at them.

Though my personal preference is to leave my client-ID unspoofed, and never return to those sites that insist on being IE-only.

Re:Slashdot Stats?

[shish]

I daresay most people here browse from work - how many offices have FF installed?

Re:Firefox desserves this...

[Junior J. Junior III]

I'm still on 0.8 because I can't live without Flash click-to-view and a few others that still aren't even 0.9 compatible. How long do we have to wait?

Re:Slashdot Stats?

[edremy]

Reprising a comment I made yesterday, at least IE can render /. correctly. Mozilla has serious problems- probably 50% of the page loads I get on /. have the margins messed up, the text black on black, or just a blank screen.

Yeah, yeah, you don't see this problem, it's my configuration, etc. I've seen it in every version since 0.5, on multiple machines, on multiple OSs. It's the only site Firefox can't render correctly. There have been times I've just used IE on /. since I don't want the hassle

Re:Google's browser stats

[Just Some Guy]

I'm not sure about that. How many bookmarks do you have? I have hundreds, all filed away appropriately. Firefox (and Konqueror) complete URLs in the address bar based on browsing history and your bookmarks, so I can type "snopes<enter>" to get to http://www.snopes.com/info/whatsnew.asp .

Contrast this with some people I know who don't realize that they can bookmark things; they use Google to find everything. Want to go to www.espn.com? Go to Google and type "ESPN"! Want to read The Onion? Go to Google and type "The Onion"!

It seems to me that the people who use non-MSIE browsers are also the ones least likely to hit Google 200 times per day, and therefore likely to be underrepresented in the totals.

Re:wikipedia stats are biased, was Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia stats are biased.

First, Wikipedia isn't yet a mainstream site (in the sense Google is). Which makes absolute numbers (20% of Mozilla usage) unreliable (biased towards Mozilla, Opera)..

Second, it's moving mainstream fast. Which makes trend analysis unreliable as well (biased __against__ Mozilla) (e.g. the page above says, that Mozilla gained only about 0.3% over the course of last 6 months, which is much lower than most other estimates)

Re:[bring on the] self fullfilling prophecy

[Weirdofreak]

What, you're saying we should make our pages look sucky in IE so everybody gets Firefox?

Utter crap.

People should get Firefox becase it's a good browser with plenty of features and none of the same security holes as IE. Not because a site they like doesn't work in anything else. Not because 'omg teh IE is notez teh browser!!1!1! [slashdot.org]' (which the W3C have ). [w3.org]

Accessibility >= Design > Compliance

Re:As much as I'd like this to be true...

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

I would wager a large sum of money that the person I responded to is not a web developer and is, in fact, just caught up in this ideology that MS must be destroyed for the world to be right. Zealotry like that, be it in religion, software, or politics, isn't rational or logical.

Furthermore, moving people away from IE isn't going to correct the problem of security flaws causing widespread damages. A much harder problem to solve is the clueless user who will not take the time to patch software. Replacing IE with some other browser isn't going to instantly correct that problem. And if you don't understand that there are going to be security flaws in software then that's the reason why you're not a real developer.

Re:Hmmmm

[palmech13]

I don't write web sites for a living, so I may be off base here, but recently I've had better luck using a standards compliant browser (Mozilla) for most of my development. When it works there, you know it's probably going to work in Opera, Safari, etc. A surprising amount of hacking it to IE can be automated using things like http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/ [edwards.name] (IE7) and other free tools.

YMMV.

Re:Hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla based browsers are actually farther from the W3C recommendations and specs than IE.

For the most part, mozilla based browsers are farther beyond the specs than IE is behind them. So what you say is more or less true, but misleading.

There are cases where the specs are weird and no one in their right mind implements things to the specs, but that's why they're "recommendations."

Make something work in Mozilla and 99% of the time it'll look exactly the same in Opera. That says a lot for standard compliance.

Re:Firefox desserves this...

[MachDelta]

I just - and I mean JUST, like 5 minutes ago - upgraded to FFox 1.0PR, and Flashblock 1.0 (aka: Flash Click-to-View) still works for me. :)

Oh, and just because an extension isn't listed as "xxx compatible" doesn't mean it won't still work.

Re:Hmmmm

[McDutchie]

all you need to do to defeat Microsoft is to release something better. And release it for free.

Ah? So when were they defeated? I must have missed that.

Re:Not more people

[Chandon Seldon]

Automatic security updates are a hard problem with significant potential for exploits. Think about it for a second - an automatic security update is "Automatically downloading and running arbitrary code on your machine".

Now, they're probably a good idea, but not nessisarily the first thing that should be implemented.