Firefox Continues Gains against IE 585
kurtz_tan writes "News.com reports that the popularity of alternative Web browser Firefox continues to rise at the expense of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, according to a new study by WestSideStory.
The study measured market share by embedding sensors on major web sites such as those of Walt Disney, Best Buy, Sony and Liz Claiborne. WebSideStory retrieves data from 30 million internet users a day passing through its monitored sites. The company then takes a snapshot of two days and compares the growth.
Since beginning its measurements last summer, WebSideStory has been cautious to draw any broad conclusions about Firefox's popularity. This time around, the company said many people are not only downloading Firefox, they're sticking with it and using it."
.88%? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, the websites they use probably skew the results as well; Disney, Best Buy, Sony, and Liz Claiborne?
If they want accuracy they should try throwing a few porn sites in, or maybe popular search engines.
I imagine if you had a more accurate sample that Firefox's share might be a little higher.
Yes, but what is happening to opera? (Score:5, Interesting)
And what's the margin of error in the polling? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sensors? (Score:2, Interesting)
Embedding sensors? You mean it checked the user agent. Probably logs (I don't run a webserver, so I dont know if all webservers log that). I knew media tended to sensationalize things but
No surprise. (Score:5, Interesting)
This would have happened a long time ago if such a good browser had come along sooner.
Firefox is fast, secure, easy to use, skinable, free, and compatible.
For once, IE isn't more popular based on it's merit. It's actually at a technical disadvantage again and it's decline in popularity is a result of that.
I was skeptical about converting most of my less tech savvy associates over to Firefox at first, but when a few actually actively asked me to help them and their feedback was all positive afterwards, I suggested it to a few more and then even more.
Now anyone I don't feel is capable of keeping their system clean while using IE I recommend convert and I've yet to hear one single complaint.
Microsoft might be stubborn (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows only statistics? (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Some non-zero number of people aren't running windows.
2. More that 5% of these are runnning firefox.
Then these figures are an underestimate for the entire web population.
Of course accepting (1) but not (2) suggests an over-estimate, so in either case be wary of considering these figures as accurate.
Re:And what's the margin of error in the polling? (Score:5, Interesting)
seriously, we do the same thing in the UK, but mostly with retail sites (B&Q, Comet, H Samuel, etc) and there are soooo many things that cause inaccuracies!
firstly, the monitors are clientside - so depending on where in the host page they live, howmany images there are on the page, how fast the user's connection is and how long they spend on a page you may or may not even register a hit.
then misconfigured caches can hided it before it gets you your logging server (but there are ways around that).
but for tracking unique users (rather than pageviews), you need cookies as well:
- some peopl have cookies turned off
- some people have cookies demoted to session-only
- some people clear their cookies periodically (e.g. they've been looking at pr0n and dont want their missus to know)
- some people use 'security' software that strips cookies and/or rewrites page content on the fly.
its a mess. numbers are never accurate and its impossible to accurately determine how inaccurate they are!
but they're right - there is a consistent and significant move toward Firefox
But having said that - it has just been Christmas, and there does seem to be a big difference between home computers and business PCs (home = more up to date, more Firefix, work = older, no alternative browsers)
we're actually seeing a *decline* in firefox figures post-Xmas, but hoping that will change!
Internet.com browser stats (Score:2, Interesting)
September 2004 - 2% Mozilla [thecounter.com]
October 2004 - 2% Mozilla [thecounter.com]
November 2004 - 3% Mozilla [thecounter.com]
December 2004 - 3% Mozilla [thecounter.com]
January 2005 - 5% Mozilla??? [thecounter.com]
Re:.88%? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:F*ing developers who build for IE only! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Too bad my school won't use Ff (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Yes, but what is happening to opera? (Score:5, Interesting)
Opera ---is--- a brilliant browser, i just feel it's not suitable for the general public.
Spread Firefox! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:No surprise. (Score:3, Interesting)
My point is, they use it because they want to and see it's advantages.
Hate to rain on ya'lls parade... (Score:2, Interesting)
But since Firefox is good and actually has some great features (you can thank the real browser innovator for many of these... Opera) people will stick with it.
I do believe that many, many more websites are designing to correct web standards instead of exclusively for IE.
As long as IE continues to be a security problem then alternate browsers will flourish. As to what % is significant I am undecided, my gut says 20% of the market and there will no longer be any IE only websites, at least any that plan on staying around!
Re:F*ing developers who build for IE only! (Score:3, Interesting)
MLS - Multiple Listing Service for Real Estate. this website alone has prevented meny a Windows -> Mac switch for me alone, now multiply this acnticidote by 1000. but this one doesn't count because only realters are locked into the system, not the general public.
Seibol - a stupid, slow, and crapy internal system used at the techshop that i work for dealing assets, and time management. This system is probably the single biggest time waster at our shop. uhg. but this one doesn't count because only techs who work at the same company i work for are locked into the system, not the general public.
Pop Cap Games - some of the newer online games are activeX controls. it ticks me off because i got addicted to one of the activeX games while bored at school (and on windows) and i can't play at home because i refuse to use that pile of horse excreesion that Microsoft calls Internet Explorer.
So in reality, popcap are the only ones holding back the FireFox monopoly.
me on the other hand, i just developed a CSS based website that looks great in FireFox, and in Safari, and in Opera. but when i tried it in IE, i confirmed what everyone theorized - IE's CSS sucks the big one. i had to use PHP to spit out code that uses an entirely different stylesheed, and gifs rather than pngs - not to mention that i still needed IE7 [edwards.name].
Re:F*ing developers who build for IE only! (Score:3, Interesting)
Congratulations, and I'm sorry that my own mod points timed out a few hours ago.
I guess the fact that this AC didn't get modded -1, Troll like anyone else talking like that shows that we are, almost unanimously, really, really pissed off at the state of the web.
From MSN groups:
MSN Chat is not currently compatible with your Internet browser and/or computer operating system. [...] We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. We hope you'll be joining the fun on MSN Chat soon!
(This is the result of writing things in ActiveX when they would work in Java. IANAL, but isn't breaking websites on competing OSs anticompetitive?)
Ignite the web!
Universities scew the figures in favour of IE (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:.88%? (Score:4, Interesting)
I disagree. At first I thought that you could increase measured non-IE browser share by including, say, Slashdot. But then I realized that the whole point of choosing the studied websites is that those websites appeal to Joe Sixpack, and not the geeks who would normally gravitate towards using non-IE browsers.
So in this case we have the worst case scenario (websites used by few geeks), showing that Mozilla is gaining over IE. Ane you're complaining?
--Rob
Re:Universities scew the figures in favour of IE (Score:2, Interesting)
2004 Browser Stats for my employer (Score:4, Interesting)
I work for a Washington State agency [esd101.net]. The majority of the vistors to our main site are K-12 related (teachers, parents, students, etc). Microsoft products are quite popular around this area due to the steep discounts that Microsoft hands out to K-12 schools and their related state agencies. However, the 2004 stats for my employer's main site are quite interesting.
Re:-1, Redundant for me, please... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why?
Simply because the people who wrote it aren't assholes. They don't have copy-protection to make my life difficult, and they compete on features rather than on marketing.
They offer a student discount, and want a letter from the registrar or a copy of your grades to prove your status. My university is run by trolls, so I wrote them and asked them if I could post a small note on my Uni webspace as proof that I was a student.
Six hours later the response came back: "Sure, that's fine. Greetings from Norway!"
I don't mind paying those guys.
5% (Score:3, Interesting)
As a mac user who's had compatibility complaints about some sites, the retort that I encountered was that the problematic site in question was designed for "95%" of the browsers going there, and if I wasn't in that 95% it just sucks to be me.
Now that it appears that FireFox is coming really close to squeezing on the 5% margin, my question is: will web designers really consider making their sites compatible with 92% of IE and 5% of FireFox? That could be a lot of work, depending on the site. Or are site designers just more likely to say "as long as we have 90% compatibility, that's good enough"? Turning away 10% of your customers seems like a lot, though, too.
Web designers in the biz care to comment? Are you guys seeing new compatibility standards? If so, that's good news for mac users. The faster ActiveX is obsoleted, the fewer problems Mac users are to face--even if the impetus for the compatibility change came from FireFox.
Re:F*ing developers who build for IE only! (Score:3, Interesting)
I wrote the website support and they sent me a response, and even fixed the website for me.
I think that most sites would like you to access their services (only idiots design a site for one browser). Sometimes you just need to politely mention it to them.
Re:Yes, but what is happening to opera? (Score:3, Interesting)
I use Opera, for one. And you don'thave to pay for it if you don't mind a small box of TEXT ads - not graphical, but text - in the upper right-hand corner.
To each his own. Anyone reasonable person will conclude that a world dominated by Firefox could hardly be any better than a world dominated by IE. We need a heteregeneous mix of browsers, not one browser to "rule them all".
Max
Re:Hate to rain on ya'lls parade... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Universities scew the figures in favour of IE (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Bullshit. Stop blaming web designers (Score:2, Interesting)
I've done the job where the PHB insisted that the web programming department does only IE development. It sucked HUGE. 5 months later I quit that job.
Now I am working at a job where one of the conditions for me to work for them was the web programming department is required to write for W3C compliancy. All my friends thought I was nuts, placing these demands when the job market was so shakey. It was a gamble, but it payed off. So far everything our web programming department has put out is 100% W3C compliant first, then a few hacks to get IE browsers to render the pages well.
-FlynnMP3
Re:False logic, nothing more. (Score:3, Interesting)
Increasing Linux users means that you're obviously going to decrease IE market share. That's the important part to understand, because they want to see how Firefox is doing in the market when people not only have plenty of options but they have one force-fed to them. If Firefox is increasing in market share because of increases in Linux, that's less important for the new browser wars than if Firefox is stealing IE users.