Firefox 3.5 Now the Most Popular Browser Worldwide 422
gQuigs notes a graph up at StatCounter Global Statistics, which shows that in the last few days Firefox 3.5 became the most used browser version worldwide, edging ahead of IE7. IE8 is rising fast (along with Windows 7), but over the last few months the slope of Firefox's worldwide curve has been steeper. (In the US, IE8 has always been ahead of Firefox 3.5; in Europe Firefox has led since late summer.) The submitter suggests using the time when Firefox rules the roost, globally speaking, to put the final nail in the coffin of IE6, which still has a 14% global share (5%-7% in the US and EU; China and Korea are holding up IE6's numbers).
From The Book of Mozilla, 11:9 (Score:2, Insightful)
Mammon slept. And the beast reborn spread over the earth and its numbers grew legion. And they proclaimed the times and sacrificed crops unto the fire, with the cunning of foxes. And they built a new world in their own image as promised by the sacred words, and spoke of the beast with their children. Mammon awoke, and lo! it was naught but a follower.
Why MS failed. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:From The Book of Mozilla, 11:9 (Score:5, Insightful)
Mammon slept. And the beast reborn spread over the earth and its numbers grew legion. And they proclaimed the times and sacrificed crops unto the fire, with the cunning of foxes. And they built a new world in their own image as promised by the sacred words [mozilla.org] , and spoke [mozilla.org] of the beast with their children. Mammon awoke, and lo! it was naught but a follower.
from The Book of Mozilla, 11:9
(10th Edition)
Only reason for any IE6 market share (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:IE6? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, checking Google Analytics for one of our websites at work has consistently shown IE6 at "just cranks and a handful of corporate users" levels for a long time now (less than 10%, down to about 5% last month or so). You'll never get rid of it completely, there are still a few nutjobs running Mac OS 9 + IE5 out there, unfortunately a lot of these people will complain loudly when things don't work for them (even though there is no chance whatsoever of most websites supporting their ancient setup).
/Mikael
An interesting way to summarize the data ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have another way -- Firefox (all versions) at 32%, Internet Explorer (all versions) at 55%. The fact that the IE market is split between 6.X, 7.X and 8.X doesn't not detract from the (regrettable) fact that Internet Explorer is the most popular browser, worldwide. Different versions do not a different browser make.
In hindsight, this distribution is rather predictable -- FF nags you to update (rightly so) whereas IE can't even update itself, let along notify you about it.
Here's a plot (thankfully, they give out the raw CSV data) with the "all versions" included. Firefox has a ways to go. http://yfrog.com/j5temptlp [yfrog.com]
This is silly... (Score:2, Insightful)
Separating out versions of different browsers is just plain silly.
Re:An interesting way to summarize the data ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly you have never been involved with web development. "aieee" has wildly different bugs and proprietary features between major versions.
One word: adblock (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:StatCounter? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure "many" of them are. It's hard to estimate, but most estimates for the proportion of users using some form of ad-blocking software are only in the 3-5% range. Even if every one of those is a Firefox 3.5 user, that would only nudge up the 21% market share to the mid-20%s, not totally rearrange the curve or anything.
Re:An interesting way to summarize the data ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The real story here is in the trends of each version. IE7 and IE6 are in decline. For Internet Explorer, only IE8 is still growing, but its rate of growth is significantly slower than Firefox's. The headline may be misleading, but the the summary is right on the money. If these trends keep up, the headline may well become true a lot sooner than you seem to think.
Re:IE6? Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or you could use 'technology' to serve different browsers different versions of the site.
Re:From The Book of Mozilla, 11:9 (Score:3, Insightful)
What’s omitted is what happens next.
If Mammon awakes, it (MS) will try to catch up, if it means anything to it.
And this will be the actual ugly fight, where one of them never comes out again.
Re:so....? (Score:1, Insightful)
Firefox is still the fastest rising browser whereas IE is in constant decline, IE8 is better but a shit in a bag is still a shit in a bag.
a the current rate firefox will take over worldwide in November 2011 (assuming linear which i doubt is true, it's more likely to take less time) and in europe it will take over in march.
Re:Misleading Title. (Score:2, Insightful)
Please MtViewGuy, gimme a hint.
Re:StatCounter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:IE6? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporate Intranets with lazy admins or dumb policies are Microsoft's best friend.
Fixed
Re:An interesting way to summarize the data ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, if you are just a spectator cheering for your team from the sidelines.
But not if you are a web developer/designer, the different versions are very different browsers. In terms of making a modern website work there is much more difference between IE8 and IE6 than there is between IE8 and FF/Safari/Chrome/Opera etc.
Re:Browser down. (Score:1, Insightful)
Hang about, surely Emacs and Vi both predate edlin? If DOS was your first experience then you're nothing but a whippersnapper yerself, a fraud!
Re:An interesting way to summarize the data ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that chart didn't but this one [statcounter.com] does.
And yes, IE (all versions) is in a rapid decline, while FF is slowly climbing.
if by "slowly climbing" you mean "flatlining", sure... Chrome's the only one with a reasonable uptick recently.
Re:Over three quarters of web spam attacks (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sure a lot of IE6 machines get hijacked, but anyone doing that is perfectly capable of lying about the user agent.
Re:IE6? Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
FYI the last day of this decade is December 31, 2010
Just like there is a difference between the 20th century (which ended 2000-12-31) and the 1900s (ended 1999-12-31), when talking about decades most people seem to refer to the decade of the 80s as 1980-89, rather than the 199th decade 1981-1990.
Re:One word: adblock (Score:4, Insightful)
That's sorta why I go for NoScript + FlashBlock over AdBlock. Ads still display - unless they are powered by Javascript or Flash. So if your ad is a simple image or block of text, I'll still see it. But it won't annoy the heck out of me.
(The bigger reason I run NoScript/FlashBlock is to avoid malware being installed via Javascript / Flash.)
Re:Given the instant speed difference alone (Score:3, Insightful)
Together, IE6, IE7 and IE8 still dominate the market. I'm afraid that will remain true for a couple more years, no matter how much pressure the rest of the world puts on the market. Separating the versions of the various browsers just clutters the picture.
While I don't agree with the rosy picture being painted, I think it's fair to say that web developers should (can?) no longer code solely for Internet Explorer. Seeing IE's market share anywhere south of 90% makes it very easy to sell to managers that poor web design will tick off a significant share of their user base.
Back when it was only 5%, very few managers cared. Even at 10%, most would sniff and say "1 in 10" isn't worth the effort to make the site cross-browser. Now we're getting into the 20% range where business types get really uncomfortable with ticking off users.
It's like asking them, "Imagine if you told every 5th customer to walk through that door to shove off?"
Is it good new for Firefox? I think it's more good news for all alternate browsers as a whole. We're almost back to where we were around 2000 where there were many different browsers in use before IE sewed up the market for half a decade.
Re:IE6 comes with XP, IE8 with Win7 (Score:3, Insightful)
As someone has said elsewhere, the more important issue here is here:
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-weekly-200827-200951 [statcounter.com]
The previous graph shows something we already know: that people happily flit between versions of the same browser, especially home users. This graph shows browser-family usage. And it shows a steady decline of IE against FF and Chrome.
But again, actually, that's not the important issue here. Here's what matters: the browser war was won when IE's monopoly was broken. Developing for just IE used to be a legitimate business practice - you were only alienating 10% of your customers, and most of them had IE on their system anyway. I remember when all my online banking required IE, as did a bunch of other sites I wanted to use.
I couldn't care less if Chrome eats FF's market-share. If Safari trumps them both. What matters, what's important, is the forced interoperability that comes from not having one browser with 90% coverage. And when that happens, everyone wins: as is rapidly becoming that case. Each new version of IE becomes more and more standards compliant, because they can no longer abuse their monopoly.
-P
Re:IE6? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporate Intranets with no budget for upgrades are what keeps IE6 alive.
And pirate internet cafés (Score:1, Insightful)
I have some web clients in Morocco - they still insist on IE4 !!! compatibility, along with IE5 and IE6, because some of the net cafés are running clients so old that couldn't run FF even if they wanted to. They refuse to update their machines in the cafés, and that's where my clients get a load of their hits from. It's not just corporations are dinosaurs.
Second anecdote: As my mother-in-law has demonstrated for years, running an "obsolete" OS (Win/ME) and browser actually reduces her virus susceptibility. Security through naive, ignorant cheapness - who would've thunk?
Re:Given the instant speed difference alone (Score:1, Insightful)
That also means, FF remote code execution vulnerabilities are now getting exploited to install malware on PCs.
Office computers - the major bulk of IE(6) users have a low probability of being infected by malware, assuming semi-competent sysadmins who keep their systems patched. IE7/8, etc has even lower chance of getting infected through 'drive by' downloads due to the protected mode isolation which guarantees that IE will run in an extremely low privilege context, so even if the browser security is defeated, the exploits' damage is minimized. Shame to see Firefox lagging behind IE8 and Chrome in this regard.
Though all in all I'm glad FF & Chrome happened and managed to revive the browser space.
Re:Only reason for any IE6 market share (Score:4, Insightful)
Insightful? Ignorant.
Go look up XP torrents. Most come slipstreamed with IE7.
Much more likely to be corporate users, or people that ignore the little yellow shield.
Re:Given the instant speed difference alone (Score:3, Insightful)
Alright - let's be fair, please.
I've been Rickrolled with Firefox on Linux, and I've also been hijacked by those sites that tell me about infections on C:/ and ask me to click "yes" to install an antivirus to clean up my infections. Firefox on Linux, no less.
But, in each case, it is the extension which enabled malicious script to redirect me. I don't think that Firefox was at fault, but I was. Mozilla never asked me to install a bunch of crap on top of their browser. If we are going to point fingers, I think we need to point fingers at Macromedia, at javascript, and some of those lesser known extensions and scripts.
As your own post points out, configuration means everything. If I sit down at a computer at work, I can't download ANYTHING with the default browser, which is IE7. I have to log in as admin, or use a browser installed on a USB to download ANYTHING.
Re:Browser down. (Score:3, Insightful)
You spoke tooo soon, it already does!
http://www-jpc.physics.ox.ac.uk/home_home.html [ox.ac.uk]
boot DSL linux in a browser using a java based x86 emulator.
Note some of the images take a while to start, but tty linux at:
http://www-jpc.physics.ox.ac.uk/tty.html [ox.ac.uk]
works.
Re:Korea (Score:1, Insightful)