Firefox Appears Ready to Crack 20% Share Next Month

CWmike writes "Mozilla's Firefox browser is on pace to hit the 20% market-share mark next month. Net Applications marketing VP Vince Vizzaccaro didn't pin all of Firefox's increase on a change last month to its update dialog; he did note the new approach. 'Mozilla has implemented a change in Firefox 3.0 [Release Candidate 1] where the installation now has a checkbox that defaults to making Firefox your default browser,' he explained. He refused to ding Mozilla for the practice. 'The option is clearly displayed and labeled, unlike Safari, which misleadingly labeled the Safari install as an "update" [but has] since correctly changed to an 'install.' However, this practice is a break from the traditional practice browsers employed of defaulting this option to off.'"

Re:So ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me example of a browser which does not do that during the install process?

Re:So ...

[Pecisk]

What's wrong with having default as enabled? All applications around the world does it and even hides it in advanced install settings. Firefox doing it openly is just OK. Not good, not bad, but just OK.

Stop being so nitpicking. I am no total Firefox fan (have lot of issues in Ubuntu), but this is not a case to bash them.

Re:So ...

[MagdJTK]

To be fair, most people installing it will want it as default. And besides, if they don't, the next time they open IE or whichever other browser they use, it will throw a hissy-fit about not being the default and show some obnoxious message complaining about this and suggesting they correct their error.

Re:So ...

[kingjoebob]

I installed the RC1 and the check box is rather obvious. Not to mention IE will throw a fit if its not the default browser next time its opened. As for immoral Nah. Bad practice maybe, but presumably if you are downloading the browser then you are doing so with the intention of making it your default browser, seeing as I don't download random browsers just for the hell of it. kjb

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that web designers and developers - and I'm guilty of this too - almost always knowingly use a browser that most of their users won't?

Who cares? As long as you test your work in the other browsers all's well.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Rydian]

Any web designer or developer worth the paper their paychecks are written on should be testing their sites against all of the major browsers anyways.

Doing so makes whatever browser you're using for your normal browsing irrelevant.

Default for How Long?

[mpapet]

Am I the only desktop admin who has, in the recent past, seen the default browser switch back to IE after and update from Microsoft?

I think it's been a while because I control when updates are applied and I don't remember a recent situation when that occurred.

I have a feeling there may be another update coming to "fix" the default browser. More likely in a new and improved convoluted way involving a dialog box, but still....

Percentage is meaningless

[A beautiful mind]

I happen to live in a country where Firefox usage broke 45% months ago and is the most popular browser, overtaking IE by 5-6%.

I honestly don't care about marketshare after the point of no return has passed where web developers are forced to use the standard in order to make it work on multiple browsers.

Re:So ...

[beelsebob]

During the *update* process, I can't think of any other browser that does this.

Re:What's the RIGHT number?

[JasterBobaMereel]

It's Simple...

If 0.01% of your potential customers cannot use your website ... you shrug and get on with your work

If a fifth of your potential customers cannot use your website... you fix it!

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Tubal-Cain]

The same way many people can bash windows and continue to use it.

Re:Default Browser

[Anonymous Coward]

At the same point, a realistically thinking person would realize that Microsoft wrote the software, so of course they're going to force you (yet again) to use internet explorer.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[lattyware]

Because Firefox renders our code correctly. IE doesn't. Design for Firefox, you design to standards, design for IE, you design for IE.

Re:LOOK! LISTEN! HEED!

[Stooshie]

Firefox sucks as a browser.

public static function firefoxSux():boolean
{
return false;
}

Re:What's the RIGHT number?

[Alwin Henseler]

It's impossible to pick one right number... because it depends on many things.

Yep - so the bad news: some internet users will not even have heard of Mozilla, or Firefox. And the good news: among specific user groups, Firefox has reached 100% market share.

This is one of those cases where I think we won. Websites are more compliant than they once were. Alternate browsers are taken seriously. This is what we clamored for a few years ago... and we've largely achieved it!

Which (among others) is an important reason I use Firefox. Simply to let organisations & companies know that I prefer a web built on open & supported standards, rather than 'renders okay in your binary-blob-of-choice'. If I'm on a webstore, and I can't navigate, or see details for what's on sale because of some stupid "use IE 6/7 on at least 1024x768 for viewing this site" or similar, than too bad, that store will lose my sale, not my problem. If as a merchant you want to sell things to 100% of potential customers, regardless of what browser they use, then simply code to standards (and test with different browsers), period. For government sites, I think they should have a requirement to be accessible using published standards/protocols (and thus with a tool of choice). In some cases this is codified in law, but implementation isn't always done as it should be (and no-one keeping oversight).

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[naasking]

Which is perfectly reasonable when there isn't a viable, (read: largely compatible) alternative.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[mgblst]

And IE comes with the Operating System, so most people don't know any better.

So the two reasons, Firefox is better, but users don't know. Those two things combined keep Microsoft in business.

Re:The most successful FOSS product?

[lattyware]

End user, yes, otherwise I presume Apache is what we are all thinking of.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[drodal]

Well, At time, microsoft was betting the farm on the fact that most people would NOT bother programming for anything BUT IE. Some people around me had that attitude. I didn't because I wouldn't help microsoft conquer the world. It was hard in the netscape 4.7 days though. So I would develop in netscape and test with IE. Yes it's a lot easier now. And yes Firebug helps too.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[bsDaemon]

I know that GNU's Not UNIX -- but it was supposed to try and be. The real question is, why should Linux try and be "largely compatible" with Windows?

If it were meant to be an "alternative" to windows, using your metric of "largely compatible," then it shouldn't have been a UNIX clone, it should have been a DOS/Win32 clone, shouldn't it have?

Linux "fails" to take to the Desktop because it fails to be Windows. It fails to be Windows because it is not -- it's Unix. And that means it has a completely different underlying philosophy of how things should be done that goes back over 30 years.

Then again, it seems that most people who "switch" to Linux, especially these days, do it because they want cheap/free windows, then complain when its not windows.

This is like buying a Crysler 300M then complaining that its not as nice as the Bentley Brooklands that its a rip-off of.

Re:OT Mod comment

[somersault]

That should be around the time that they add the boldly sarcastic mod.

Re:Maybe

[Alwin Henseler]

Maybe with 20% market share I will start meeting web site designers who know that Microsoft is not "the internet", that there are other browsers and that the W3 sets the standards.

Web site designers will know this already, unless they're even more stupid than some of their users. But this isn't even relevant. What is relevant, is that there's a significant percentage that uses something other than what's most popular (and that this percentage consists of several 'others').

If you're a company and ignore a significant percentage of potential customers, that will cost you. Few companies can afford to lose out on those customers, when the competition is happy to serve them. Darwinian selection will do the rest, and (after time) leave only companies where you can use any reasonable popular browser to do business with. Ofcourse for government institutions, or companies in some sort of monopoly position (like the only provider of goods/services in a specific market) these rules may work different, but that's the general idea.

Re:ecommerce impact

[moore.dustin]

Your story is too convenient to be 100% true.

1) No programming team would ignore FF unless directed to do so. You are telling me you got a group of programmers together and they all loved IE so much they were completely oblivious to FF?

2) Some .NET goodies didnt work? Only some? If sales dipped like you said... then the whole system had to be hosed to get 0 sales from that demographic.

3) You traffic would not drop to nil in a week, so that is your biggest "I am lying" thing. You are suggesting that all your past users accessed your site that week, saw it didnt work right, and decided to not come back ever again. None of the only check the site every couple weeks? I mean give me a break - this is obviously an exaggeratiom

4) FF traffic shot back up in a week. (See #3)

5) Your 'younger' crowd would have been apt to try your site in IE if it failed in FF... at least in lets say... 25% of the cases.

The bottom line is this story is almost certainly partially fabricated and why? Do you not like Microsoft or maybe you just really like FF? I cannot believe you got modded up for blatant fanboyism.

Re:So ...

[TheRaven64]

Most programs make themselves the "handler" for whatever file type they support by default upon install. Quicktime, MS Media Player, and Real all do this with media files. Every photo viewer I've ever installed does this with image files.

Which is a huge pain in a lot of cases. I haven't used Windows for a while, but I remember that clicking on a JPEG image was likely to open a completely random program because I had a dozen apps that were all capable of viewing JPEGs (even though only a couple could edit them) and whichever one had been updated most recently claimed the associations. It's fine to add yourself as a possible handler for a particular type of content, but becoming the default is just likely to piss users off.

Re:What's the RIGHT number?

[Snover]

merchants don't simply write off all possible disabled/injured customers and say they can do without those sales

Actually, many of them probably would if they could, but the Americans with Disabilities Act makes it illegal to do so.

Re:ecommerce impact

[serviscope_minor]

Well, I'm not the OP, but:

1) No programming team would ignore FF unless directed to do so. You are telling me you got a group of programmers together and they all loved IE so much they were completely oblivious to FF?

Never underestimate bad development: http://www.thedailywtf.com/ [thedailywtf.com].

2) Some .NET goodies didnt work? Only some? If sales dipped like you said... then the whole system had to be hosed to get 0 sales from that demographic.

I'd guess all. Not that it needs to be. If the "goody" is something like checking out, then you'd get 0 sales.

3) You traffic would not drop to nil in a week, so that is your biggest "I am lying" thing. You are suggesting that all your past users accessed your site that week, saw it didnt work right, and decided to not come back ever again. None of the only check the site every couple weeks? I mean give me a break - this is obviously an exaggeratiom

  4) FF traffic shot back up in a week. (See #3)

  5) Your 'younger' crowd would have been apt to try your site in IE if it failed in FF... at least in lets say... 25% of the cases.

Consider sites like tiger direct or new egg. If one wasn't working, or frankly was even a bit slow, I'd go to the other and buy my stuff. You'd see one page hit on the broken one, and loads on the other as I did my searched. I buy new stuff maybe once in every 6 months, but the traffic of these sites is high. If everyone was a lazy, impatient, and not very frequent shopper like myself, a traffic pattern like this would be likely. The people coming in week 2 would not be the same people in the 9broken) week one. Also if there is stiff competition, then website problems just make me go elsewhere.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[Thyamine]

How does that make it irrelevant? I use a web browser outside of work related tasks all the time. Why would I not use the browser I preferred most? Certainly for testing a site, I'd expect to check using several browsers, but I don't see a need to visit /. using IE, then Firefox, then maybe Opera or Safari, and then back to IE.

Re:ecommerce impact

[steelfood]

How does GP's defense of GGGP have any bearing on the issue at hand? I think if you had any reasonable replies to GP's counterarguments, you would've stated them, instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks on GP and GGGP.

And for the record, there is nothing in GGGP's anecdote that has raised any red flags for me.

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[ady1]

So what you are saying is that linux is not like windows but is like unix? and yet in your last line, you say that its a ripoff of windows?

Re:Well, isn't that ironic?

[OzBeserk]

One word: Firebug. It's by far the most powerful tool I know for untangling the front end HTML generated from JSF etc and helping work out which actual CSS styles are being picked up by HTML elements.

Re:Linux on the desktop

[Tweenk]

I find it much easier to install Pidgin (formerly GAim) on Windows and Mac compared to Linux.

Because you don't know about package managers, or didn't care to check out the "Add/Remove..." option in the apps menu?
I don't know how software installation can be easier that it currently is. The only major problem is that it's different, and that Windows' "Add/Remove Software" dialog doesn't actually let you add any software.