Firefox Now Serious Threat to IE in Europe 384
Tookis writes "Mozilla's Firefox web browser has made dramatic gains on Microsoft's Internet Explorer throughout Europe in the past year with a marked upturn in FF use compared to IE over the past four months, according to French web monitoring service XiTiMonitor. A study of nearly 96,000 websites carried out during the week of July 2 to July 8 found that FF had 27.8% market share across Eastern and Western Europe, IE had 66.5%, with other browsers including Safari and Opera making up the remaining 5.7%. In some key European markets FF has already reached parity and is threatening to overtake IE as the market leading browser."
Browser usage (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Browser usage (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Browser usage (Score:5, Insightful)
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Connecting educational levels with political and business ethics awareness is very much at the heart of questions such as this, in fact a lack of higher educational levels/standards are the primary cause of the monumental mess we are currently in. As we read more and more about the failure of American (US) schools and as foreign exchange students come to the US to find themselves ahead of the equivalent grade level when they get here. As we forgive companies for gross breaches of law (anti-trust, racketee
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It is pretty weird. This might serve as a good site for testing one's sarcasm detector. ONTH, how do people find time to do this sort of thing? Oh, wait.
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Great (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great (Score:5, Funny)
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http://secunia.com/product/5883/?task=advisories [secunia.com]
Re:Great (Score:5, Funny)
I want to use wget, but it is also has a history of bugs that can be exploited [google.com].
I'll stick with telnet, and parse it with my eyes. Although it is a bit difficult for HTTPS sites.
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IE 7 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:IE 7 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Did IE 7 add a "hold a gun to your head" plugin recently that we don't know about?
"As an IT professional I have no issues with spyware/viruses regardless of the browser I use."
Wow... I didn't know that 'IT Professionals' were immune to viruses! Who would have thought that viruses, trojans, etc. were clever enough to check your resume...
So, you are an 'IT Professional' that proudly proclaims they use Vista... Oh wait - you forgot mention that you
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since IE7 was released Ive had no reason to use firefox unless some old website was not designed properly
That's more likely to go the other way around: With few exceptions, a properly designed site should render just fine in Firefox. On the other hand, IE 7 is still quite buggy [gtalbot.org], therefore any quirkiness you happen across is likely to be for the benefit of IE and not other browsers.
Re:IE 7 (Score:4, Interesting)
Look again - closely. The effect is fairly subtle under the XP look but much more noticeable under Vista with the full Aero Glass effects enabled.
When you position the mouse cursor over a scrollbar, it's supposed to light up. Under Vista, this means going from a gray color to a blue color, making it fairly noticeable. Under XP's look, this means going from a light blue to an even lighter blue. If you're using the Classic look, there's nothing to see, since there is no mouse-over effect.
Vista's full Aero Glass additional has a fade-in effect where the button background on the arrows is supposed to appear. (Firefox fails to do this, just like IE7.) Likewise, there's a fade-out effect when the mouse leaves the scrollbar that both IE7 and Firefox fail to do. Of course, IE7 can't do it since it never did the original mouse-over effect.
Under IE7, this effect never happens. Mousing-over the scrollbar does nothing.
I've got a movie of it happening under Vista using FRAPS. Unfortunately I'll have to go hunting for something to change it into a useful format, since I doubt a lot of people have the FRAPS codec installed.
Keep in mind this only happens in the MSHTML control. All form controls inside of MSHTML are emulated. You can easily verify this by looking at a form button with a very large caption - IE6/IE7 stretch out the button background to the point it looks strange. Not to mention that all form controls in IE7 are missing Vista's Aero Glass fade-in/fade-out effects.
IE 4 vrs Dillo. (Score:2)
You're telling me I want to go back to IE 4 all of the sudden?
Dillo would be easier. As a bonus it has tabs and better rendering. Both, however, have fewer digital restrictions and would be preferable to the terms of use of IE7.
Firefox, of course, offers better rendering, more user customization, ease of use, security and hardware choice than IE7. Combined with GNU/Linux, you can install Firefox on just about any computer without loss of modern web standards, flash and all that. IE7 is PIII and abov
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It won't. Full fledged Ubuntu needs a decent system spec. Gnome has got its own framework overheads, and Ubuntu adds a lot more newbie friendly stuff that ups the system reqs to about the same as XP. Ubuntu is a lovely distro in a great many ways, but svelte it ain't.
You could try XUbuntu. Uses XFCE rather than Gnome, and uses a lot less in the way of resources. You can insta
Wish for US (Score:5, Insightful)
What is more irritating is that those few IE-only sites are about 95% working with Firefox. There are usually only a few parts of the site that don't work (but that is all it takes). With minimal correction/effort, those sites would work on any platform. But even after repeated begging (on one, for YEARS), a few such sites have still had no interest in "fixing" things. I do wish there was a version of Firefox/Mozilla that had an IE-compatibility mode... "FireIE Fox" or something, for use in such cases.
Fortunately, another few broken sites finally "saw the light", probably due to complaints from people like us, and fixed things.
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Runs under MS-Windows only.
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I assure you, it is not a joke, nor is it funny
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Re:Wish for US (Score:5, Interesting)
I was reading a few weeks ago that, in Europe, the impetus to change web sites that only supported IE was significantly increased by showing how large a market share they were missing out by tying their site to proprietary software 'standards'. I am trying to find the professional journal in which I read the article and, when I find it, I will try to find if there is an electronic link that I can post here for others to read. The usage of Firefox, Opera et al in Europe is much higher than in the States and so our businesses have much more to lose but the principle is the same wherever you are, particularly in these days of globalisation.
There is no need for a IE-Compatibility mode in Firefox/Mozilla, simply get MSIE to use the accepted standards and the problem is solved.
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Re:Wish for US (Score:5, Insightful)
Now look, I didn't say the Microsoft isn't stupid, but changing the rest of the world to suit MS is not the way I choose to go. Why should we modify everything else to suit one company?
But the solution is easier still. MSIE doesn't have to change, if people just stop designing websites that use MS-specific extensions. It can be done, you know. MSIE can accept whatever it wants but if no-one is using MS specific extensions then it will still work.
Lesson: Complain. (Score:2)
My rate of failure these days is less than one percent. It's very rare to find a site that I NEED that is IE only.
I do wish there was a version of Firefox/Mozilla that had an IE-compatibility mode... "FireIE Fox" or something, for use in such cases. Fortunately, another few broken sites finally "saw the light", probably due to complaints from people like us, and fixed things.
It's better to complain and get the issue fixed than it is to waste time on the endless task of chasing M$'s tail. The great t
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Methodology (Score:3, Informative)
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If you are trying to sell wine for 25+ quid a bottle over the web you very soon realise that Safari and Firefox on Mac is actually 40+ of your audience followed closely by Firefox on other platforms. IE simply does not show up on the radar.
If you are trying to serve pornography for the soul like Daily Mail or Sun IE is 99% of your readership and is not going to change any time soon.
Where do the stats come from? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Where do the stats come from? (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, it's you! Stop sending me email.
Re:Where do the stats come from? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not what we're seeing (Score:3, Interesting)
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Slovenia 47.9%
Finland 45.4%
Slovakia 40.4%
6 nations 35-40% ( Ireland jumped here (55% more users since last monitoring 4 months ago) and now has 38.6% share )
6 nations 30-35%
0 nations 25-30%
8 nations 20-25%
8 nations 15-20% ( UK is here with 18.7% )
http://www.xitimonitor.com/fr-fr/barometre-des-nav igateurs/firefox-juillet-2007/index-1-1-3-102.html [xitimonitor.com]
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"Although clear market share gains for FF were reported in every single European territory, countries where [FF] still has not reached 20% market share include Britain, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Norway and Denmark."
So, your results DO match up with theirs.
IE7 WGA? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure why they refuse it to non-genuine users anyway. I can understand security patches, but this? No one is going to go out and buy Windows just to use IE7.
It seems everything Microsoft does to curb piracy these days hurts its monopoly.
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Interesting...
Popularity Contests (Score:4, Interesting)
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You have to understand the difference between propriety software and FOSS software. It is much easier to fix problems in FOSS software than it is for propriety software. That is because with FOSS, I can just fix a problem if I like to. With propriety software, I need permission from the management and a very good money-related reason to do so.
And even if Firefox would fail badly after gaining remarkable market share. At that point world'
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Market Share Matters (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why it's not enough for us to just believe in freedom and build free software. We have to make sure it succeeds in the market, or we'll lose the ability to communicate with the non-free world and ultimately our free software will be useless.
The figures are misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:The figures are misleading (Score:5, Informative)
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It might have been conceivable that a noticeable proportion of Firefox users did this when the market share was %0.005 or thereabouts, but do you seriously think anyone from the "general public" does this?
And what are these impenetrable banking sites that people keep harping on? I haven't seen one that doesn't work with Firefox (at least in the last 3 years or so).
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It "theoretically" supports Firefox, but you need to jump through hoops to get it running (e.g. extract a filename from source of the page, download it to hard drive, save it in a directory somewhere in Firefox plugins). Otherwise you can log in, you can view your account, but you just can't sign (and in effect finalize) any transaction.
I'm forced to use IE 8+ hours a day (Score:2, Insightful)
So this should be taken into consideration, IE share at home might be lower than statistics show.
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FORCED? (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I don't see how anyone is forced to do anything, however the original poster could be in China, North Korea, Russia, South Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South Ame
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If you can do it without coming across as an asshole, it's possible they'll give you some consideration. Best case is
If Firefox passed up IE (Score:2)
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If they don't tell me what to use, I won't tell them what to use.
Leaving 5.7% to the other browsers.... (Score:3, Insightful)
That makes Steve Jobs' recent presentation using a diagram with just I.E. (ca. 75%) and Safari (supposedly ca. 25%) shares shown for some time in the future an even more ridiculous event...
Just to confirm these stats I checked our site (Score:2)
Think that's bad? (Score:3, Funny)
So, when you are cracking up because of idiot webmasters locking you in to using IE7 to view their sites, just know you don't have the absolute worst of it
I'd like to know... (Score:2, Interesting)
IE still had some + points (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, IE is the only browser where you can easily configure it enterprise wide, extremely easily. Want to lock down specific websites to text & images only for thousands of machines remotely? It's as easy as doing it in "Internet Options" in Windows. Want to switch off JavaScript internet-wide for specific departments/offices in your enterprise? Same again - just set the group policy option.
Basically, ALL of the IE options are over-ridable at a Group Policy level, built into every AD system since Windows 2000 Server. IE is the only browser that makes this possible. That, folks is quite often why IE is the corporate browser of choice - it's the only one that can be centrally managed like that.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:IE still had some + points (Score:5, Informative)
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox:2.0_Institutional
and inparticular:
http://homepages.ed.ac.uk/mcs/FirefoxADM/Readme.h
It's FX, not FF! (Score:3, Informative)
FX also means alot of things.... (Score:3, Insightful)
FireFox F...F..
See how that works?
I dare you to find a 2 letter abbreviation that is unused.
Funny... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's an odd way to celebrate Firefox and Mozilla's success.
--
Toro
Re:Hoo-ray (Score:5, Insightful)
At least it isn't proprietary junk that doesn't follow standards and tries to shut out the competition. It's a step forward.
Re:Hoo-ray (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the success Firefox is having at the moment will drive its development further. Because it's not a commercial product we're not going to get the IE experience where the lazy bastards never fix anything and just add features that are broken. There is a genuine drive to innovate and make something that withstands the scrutiny of the community.
Maybe it will pave the way for some proper competition like Opera and others, which are bound to win more market share as the firefox using public start to hear about other alternatives.
Personally though, I've found Firefox to have gotten better and better with time. It's gotten very stable and has plug ins which run well and reliably. It's definitely ready for prime time.
Re:Hoo-ray (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hoo-ray (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hoo-ray (Score:4, Funny)
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I'm not sure that's the correct term to use, since Opera already is 'proper competition', and has been for a long time. It may have a low market share, but it still gets huge praise from it's users whenever it's mentioned on Slashdot, and I consider it to be a better browser than Firefix. It doesn't get the mainstream atte
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Firefox gathers revenue from the default search engine setting (google). If I remember correctly, MSIE has the exact same search interface, default set to MSN. It does generate revenue, even if it is not accounted for by Microsoft.
There are other internal revenue streams. It's just that this one is in your face; perfectly identical to FF's.
Protectionism? (Score:2)
Re:Protectionism? (Score:5, Insightful)
It does neither.
That the bundling of IE with Windows practically destroyed the competition at one point is a historical fact; however, the competition's picking up again has got to do with something completely different, though related: having annihilated the competition, MS stopped innovating - actually, MS stopped doing anything about it. The war was won, there was nothing left to do, and any further innovation in a market you monopolize would be redundant.
Netscape failed because Microsoft managed to build a good enough product, bundled it with Windows and then improved at least to the point people wouldn't bother downloading Netscape. It was a hard blow, and Netscape never recovered, though they might have.
Now, history is repeating itself; this time Microsoft sat on their collective heels and Mozilla hit them.
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Yeah, the well-known insurmountable power of communism over Western school systems. I'm pissing my pants.
Re:Hoo-ray (Score:5, Informative)
It has nothing to do with communism, and everything to do with the politics of WWII. The reason Nazi Germany is covered more thoroughly and often thought of as worse than Stalin's USSR is because:
1.) Stalin was our ally at the time, and pointing out the systematic slaughter he carried out against his own people would not have been good for domestic support of the war.
2.) The Nazis committed the Holocaust, and we in the West have convinced ourselves that killing based on political ideology is more palatable than killing based on ethnic/cultural/religious identity.
If you bother to pick up a history book, though, or even just look at the total dead under Stalin's regime, you'll quickly begin to see that Hitler had nothing on Stalin. Hitler killed roughly 9-11 million in the Holocaust. The general consensus, according to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], is that Stalin killed at least that many, and likely killed nearly twice that amount. Stalin just chose the right group of people with whom to ally. And, he didn't specifically target the Jews. If history has taught us anything, it's that killing the Jews never works out as intended.
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Precisely, and this is what I pointed out: what, inherently, makes Hitler's killing worse than Stalin's? Why do you believe that killing a particular ethnic group is more heinous than killing political prisoners? Stalin created his own institutionalized machine, he was just remarkably less adept at keeping records than Hitler. Why does Hitler's profe
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Show me a Soviet gas chamber. Plus, regarding the singularity of the Holocaust, you are arguing against probably >> 90% of (as least European) historians, and your arguments are not new.
You are arguing what I pointed out as absurd, earlier
No I don't. I am arguing that Nazi Germany was the point where enlightenment horribly turned on itself. Prior to 1933, Germany was what was regarded as a modern nation, albeit with its problems. In
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Re:It's about Freedom. (Score:5, Funny)
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I don't think 1 is a majority, unless everyone else is 0. But I know why you are trying to say.....
You can download the source code for Firefox to check that it is not being naughty, you know? And you can then compile it yourself so that you can sleep at night. If not use Epiphany, Opera, Lynxs or make your own fork.
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What about google anyway? (Score:2)
Second of all how is Mozilla tainted? Whats wrong with executives riding 1st class to a conference in the carribean?
Are you one of those people who is automatically supspicious of wealth and success and puts the poor/underdog up on a pedastal when in reality both groups consist of humans?
As for other options, there's Opera, Opera is free as in beer but not as in speech. Konquerer is open source. Since you seem to despise anything corporate you are probably running Linux alrea
Re:Whee! Monopoly Exploit Time (Score:5, Insightful)
So once Firefox has majority of the global market share, the web has already been converted to work with any browser and we (users, companies, developers, anyone except Microsoft) have won.
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(Actually, things like VMWare and WINE do make switching easier, but it's still a far cry from the "grandma acceptance" state.)