Firefox Site Visits Up 237% 379
prostoalex writes "Nielsen//NetRatings, a top Web reporting and metrics agency, started tracking the Firefox Web site in June 2004 and has announced 237% growth since then. Nielsen tracks Firefox Web site visits, not downloads or usage patterns, but it notes that "Men accounted for 71% or nearly 1.9 mln site visitors, compared to the women who comprised 29% or the minority population who visited in March 2005.""
Sorry to disappoint everyone (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sorry to disappoint everyone (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sorry to disappoint everyone (Score:5, Interesting)
(I ++love++ Firefox, but it should be noted that it's easier for FF users to load multiple sites rapidly [which it's Referrer tag keys])
Re:Sorry to disappoint everyone (Score:5, Funny)
I use a mac (*), every click is a midle click!
(*) You insensitive clod.
Re:Sorry to disappoint everyone (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, welcome our new 71% male / 29% female overlords!
Calling Home (Score:5, Funny)
And how does NetRatings know the gender of the visitors? Maybe if a visitor is quick and direct, it's a male; If a visitor is browsing around few sections back and forward, it's a female?
Re:Calling Home (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Calling Home (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Calling Home (Score:5, Funny)
if(browser_type == "Firefox/1.0.2 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US;"){
visitor="man";
} else{
visitor="woman";
}
Re:Calling Home (Score:5, Informative)
i wondered that myself. probably an opt-in deal, like the neilson TV families who allow their viewing habits to be tracked and mapped against their demographic?
Re:Calling Home (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Calling Home (Score:5, Funny)
shoes, jewelry, kitchen renovation, closet expansion, clothes, gardening : gosub "FEMALE"
cars, beer, basement renovation, MMORPGs, cigars, poker, sports : gosub "MALE"
else/default
print "What the fsck else is there in life!?!"; exit();
end case
Heh. (Score:2, Interesting)
Oddly enough... (Score:3, Informative)
The most popular browser/OS combination to my sites (which are Unix-oriented) is Firefox/WinXP.
Firefox/Linux is actually in second place. IE of various flavours on Win32 is third.
Certainly not what I expected to see before starting the sites, that's for sure -- but it's roughly the same mix on each one.
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:2)
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:2)
I think I remember another site posting an interview with him saying that he wouldn't give the information out, but I have had a few beers, so don't take this as gospel.
In fact don't take it at all, just email him and get your own information, mine is worthless. I can't even remember his name at the moment (hands in geek membership badge and commits hari-kari).
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:2)
Well, when/if your Unix machine is down and you can't remember how to partition the new drive anymore you take what you can get, even if it means using Windows.
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:2)
Actually, I really do have to thank you for your reply. I'm always on the lookout for article ideas, and that's a good one. Thank you, kind sir!
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:2)
Linux on the server and windows on the desktop makes those stats a whole lot more reasonable.
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:2)
Agreed. I personally use Unix for both server and workstation duties, so it's easy to forget that not everyone does.
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:3, Insightful)
Parent would be worthy of its Informative mod if there was some scope to its claim (I could mod as overrated but I'd rather actually find out what sort of number of people we're talking about here, because its pretty impressive if Firefox is the #1 browser on a decent-sized site!)
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:3, Informative)
For most of that time, I've used Mozilla on Solaris/x86 to access the sites.
Parent would be worthy of its Informative mod if there was some scope to its claim (I could mod as overrated but I'd rather actually find out what sort of number of people we're talking about here, because its pretty impressive if Firefox is the #1 browser on a decent-sized s
Yeah, so? (Score:2)
I program professionally, and so, I do what the paying customers want. Often that involves Windows. Don't worry, I am actively doing both x86 and ppc Linux stuff too.
I book revenues programming whatever "they" want, and you know what? All computers suck.
Re:Oddly enough... (Score:4, Funny)
I said "Unix", not "Eunuchs".
What's more impressive (Score:3, Insightful)
Downscale (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Downscale (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't trust metrics based on use by number of downloads. I think there is too much room for error on both sides.
Re:Downscale (Score:2)
If you compare it to the few hundred million internet connected computers it is very impressive.
Re:Downscale (Score:2)
Re:Downscale (Score:5, Informative)
Looking at it like that, it means that most of these visitors are brand new to the site rather than returning visitors, thus meaning that they have increased their reach several times more than 300%.
Nielson/Netratings has Java/Javascript code that runs on their customers' web sites to report traffic back to them (RedSheriff). If Firefox put that on their site they would be able to tell just how many of these visitors were returning from previous months.
Re:Downscale (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Downscale (Score:2)
Re:Downscale (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Statistical lag. It is only the recent surveys that have caught those newer users. The older data and surveys, many of which are linked to 3rd party cookies and web bugs which FF usually blocks, were probably under-representing FF usage.
2. Statistical method. Every "survey" has its ups and downs. You'll get a definitive answer when the top 5000 or so websites give up all their access log files. This, of course, will never happen. So tomorrow you may read a study about how FF usage
Re:Downscale (Score:4, Informative)
- A
Just be happy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just be happy (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm quite pleased that a GNU GPL-covered web browser is making so many inroads on so many desktops around the world. The FLOSS OS distributors are all doing fantastic work helping to promote its use, and of course the Firefox website is quite popular after every mention in the New York Times. I hope that people will use Firefox as a means to moving to a free software system someday.
Re:Just be happy (Score:3, Informative)
Consulting Firefox (Score:2)
For the slower win32 boxes I use k-Meleon.
http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/start/
Re:Consulting Firefox (Score:3, Funny)
Nice! How'd you manage that, some funky new ActiveX control?
It would be interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
Aha! (Score:2, Funny)
Well anyway, I often miss the X an hit the firefox logo, which takes me to the Firefox home page. Aha! So lots of MEN have been going to the Firefox page, huh? I wonder why! We're missing the X in the upper right corner whi
Re:Aha! (Score:2, Funny)
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't realize my browser reported whether I was male or female as part of the browser Id string!
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Lucky for you it's a boolean, and not an integer!
Re:Really? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Dunno what that means.
Bad Statistics (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, my web site had 1000% growth, I went from me viewing it to a few relatives looking at a picture I put up from them (40% female, 60% male), so, obviously, my website is faster growing that firefoxes!
Give me a break (Score:2)
You can't. Maybe that's why they dont! So now you can just make stuff up, refute it, and get modded insightful?
Besides, my web site had 1000% growth, I went from me viewing it to a few relatives looking at a picture I put up from them (40% female, 60% male), so, obviously, my website is faster growing that firefoxes!
Yes, that's true. What's your point?
Close button placement... (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously I hit it by accident all the time.
Re:Close button placement... (Score:2)
Re:Close button placement... (Score:2)
Re:Close button placement... (Score:3, Interesting)
I put my bookmark toolbar into the menu bar, stripped my 30 favourite bookmarks of everything but their icon, and put 'em all in the toolbar, so the icons are on the same line as "File, Edit,...". Sucks if you go to a site that doesn't have icons though.
Ok, that's enough OT for today
My stats are very high Mozilla percentage (Score:5, Interesting)
More stats, but probably realistic (Score:4, Informative)
12 months ago, IE accounted for a steady 94% of hits. Gecko-based browsers (Netscape 6+, Mozilla, Firefox) accounted for 3%. Netscape 4 had around 1.5% of the hits, Safari just under 1%, Opera about 0.5%, and Konqueror 0.1%.
Firefox started registering in my logs around July, when the Gecko share jumped to 4.3%, rising steadily to 5.7% in October. In December Gecko jumped up to 7%, and is currently around 8.2% (March-April). Firefox now represents about 80% of Gecko-based browsers. The number of non-Firefox Gecko hits (ie. Netscape 6+, etc) has remained more-or-less steady.
IE's decline matches Firefox's rise - by October, it was down to 92%. IE now rates around 87% of hits on our site.
Safari has increased to about 2.5%. Netscape 4 has (finally) declined to virtual insignificance. Sadly, Konqueror has also declined steadily, maybe 0.03% in a good month (looks like a lot of Konqueror users have switched to Firefox too).
These stats come from an Australian state government website that receives about 3 million hits per month. The site is not technology-oriented, and about half of the hits come from overseas, so I believe that this is a reasonably good sample of browser use.
Re:Majority of Slashdot visitors use IE (Score:2)
Re:Majority of Slashdot visitors use IE (Score:3, Insightful)
It also ignores all the Slashdotters reading the site while skiving off work on a locked-down Windows box, where IE is the only option availible. That's not to say 'OMG NO1 ON
71% of the men... (Score:5, Funny)
The study also reported that nearly 71% of the men were visiting sites promising 100% women.
Privacy protection for Konqueror users (Score:5, Funny)
Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> Browser Identification
Re:Privacy protection for Konqueror users (Score:2)
Don't worry about it. I added a patch long ago to randomize gender information. Been there since KDE 2.0.1. It isn't cryptography secure random, but I don't think that matters because gender is not used in the seed.
Gender? (Score:5, Funny)
men and women (Score:2, Interesting)
...And I feel the compulsive need to point out TFA's incorrect use of "comprise."
Re:men and women (Score:2)
One more time! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One more time! (Score:2)
The Firefox website visits are through the roof. Do you think they're all just readers or are some of them downloaders?
Learn to draw a conclusion.
Re:One more time! (Score:3, Insightful)
Things are changing (Score:5, Interesting)
And why did it happen? Tons of customer feedback directly on the site, and metrics showing that firefox use was climbing. Rapidly. And here i thought those 'feedback forms' wouldn't actually lead to any change.
This is to be expected... (Score:2, Insightful)
Thing is, Firefox defaults to the Firefox website! So you had a huge push to download and install firefox, and people being what they are (lazy), a whole bunch of firefox installs all pointing at the firefox website everytime they fire up. Let's see how this trend continues for another year or so before we get uber
Re:This is to be expected... (Score:2, Informative)
Not only that, but the default page on the Firefox site has a Google search field right in the middle. Most of the people I know (including IE users) have set Google as their start page. With Firefox, there's no reason to change. Smart.
Re:This is to be expected... (Score:3, Informative)
Have you used Firefox? It defautls to http://google.com/firefox.
- A
Impact of Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that I'm not saying this is bad or that there aren't good effects Firefox has (in fact, I believe it is a great browser). Just that the biggest impact on *development* is it will increase the cost of entry on scripted sites.
This may be a good or bad thing. When the web first started, it was possible to be an "HTML Expert" by doing layouts with tables. I kid you not. This was advanced at one time and people had to figure out how to do it.
With browsers having pretty much settled down (meaning that Microsoft stopped releasing new browsers and 90% market share belonged to Microsoft), the wealth of knowledge on HTML coding has grown considerably. It was hard to be an *expert* at HTML or Scripting because everyone had done it before. That said, there are some truly brilliant people at sites like QuirksMode [quirksmode.org].
Now I feel that the new direction that uber-coders are going for is *useful* DHTML scripting (also known as JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets and the Document Object Model to manipulate HTML live). By useful, I don't mean a cursor with a trail of stars. I mean things like popup calendars for date selectors, rich text editors, GMail and WYSIWYG page editors with live previews.
DHTML is still hard and mostly poorly documented. Anybody who has made a rich text editor for MSIE knows that it isn't too bad anymore. There is more documentation on how to do it. Definitely not *a lot* but enough that you can find your way through it.
Try this though: Make an iframe window that simulates a regular window. Okay. Now do it so that is supports MSIE, FireFox and Safari. If you want to (eventually) support more than 75% of the market, you have to support FireFox now and I'd throw Safari on the list as it is the default browser (I think) on the Mac.
Some of the toughies are the event handlers for these browsers which are quite different. I've written code to make them both work with one code base but there is virtually no documentation on this. There are dozens of quirks not listed and the only way you can figure 'em out is through trial and error.
Okay, I know I haven't covered all my bases in making this argument, but I think the smarts you will need to be an uber-coder for DHTML just got harder. This is good because there is room for new experts. If you are a great coder, there is a chance to be a brilliant cross-browser DHTML coder. If you are strictly average (nothing wrong with that), your job may have got harder.
Ironically, code re-use on JavaScript seems to be very low.
By the way, if you need evidence that cross-browser DHTML is hard, it even took Google a while to get Firefox compatible with GMail. Think how much cash they've got.
Signing out...
Re:Impact of Firefox (Score:2)
Now as Safari/MSIE/FF are DOM-based, its a lot easier - sure there are quirks, but it only means "Build it so it works in FF, then tweak for others" instead of "do a 'if (MSIE)' first and then rewrite everything in the 'else' for NN4".
Feel ready to own one or many Tux Stickers [ptaff.ca]?
Re:Impact of Firefox (Score:5, Interesting)
The plan is that it will actually drive the cost of web development down by forcing IE to get better.
Right now a lot of web developers' time is spent working around IE bugs. A random one of thousands of examples is making a dotted border - a simple, common request. The CSS is "border: 1px dotted blue". Non-IE browsers happily obey. To do this in IE you actually need to make/upload 2px GIFs, and set them to tile in such a way that they look like dotted borders.
If the popularity of standard browsers forces Microsoft to improve IE's standards support, and IE gets things like alpha transparency in graphics and a sane box model, the time/cost saved will outweigh that of having to deal with different event registering models.
In summary, now that there's competition again, web development can actually start to improve once more - it could end up being cheaper even.
Re:Impact of Firefox (Score:3, Interesting)
But then there's IE/Win.
The "Username:" and "Password:" labels don't show up. Actually, if I change the colors so I can see what's going on, they're actually getting drawn, then they immediately disappear, as if they're being d
About the gender statistics... (Score:5, Informative)
I know it sounds crazy, but I went ahead and visited the the Nielsen site and read up on their strategy. I realize this goes against the techie tradition of never RTFM, but that's a risk I was willing to take.
Turns out they use a "holistic" approach to their data gathering. Everything from "server side blabbity-blah blah blah" to conducting surveys, hiring people to browse, and tracking ad clicks.
I'm guessing that the gender comes from the surveys, but I don't want to upset anybody who might be really excited about a new gender-aware version of HTTP.
If you want to read up on this stuff yourself, you can check out some info here:
http://www.nielsennetratings.com/mktg.jsp?secti
Click on a few products to see the range of apps/services offered. You'll see where all this data comes from.
Quality products rise to the top (Score:2)
The RSS integration is the biggest draw for me right now, Safari doesn't have it. (Mac user).
Google pre-fetch (Score:2)
I'm confused... (Score:3, Funny)
What other populations exist, exactly? Transvestites? Monkeys? Martians?
29% women? wow (Score:2)
Just another indication that FF is going mainstream. Yay!
Maybe if Mozilla had better documentation ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, Firefox has all sorts of neat hacking potential which dovetails with increasingly exposed hooks into Google things like Google maps [google.com].
Sadly, some basic browser commands and options are poorly documented and advanced information (on hacking) is largely non-existant. Which kinda sucks because some people find it easy to extend Firefox with bookmarklets, extensions, and GreaseMonkey scripts.
For example, a full Firefox contains a DOM (Document Object Model) Inspector which can help in traking down say how a page hid something in a style sheet. However there is no official documentation for this DOMi. Some outside web pages have helped by explaining what some of the buttons mean, but I have yet to see any discussion of "evalute javascript" and I can't seem to get it to work.
I am someone well versed in programming in many languages, but professionally never learned javascript. Yet I have written a few bookmarklets by example (e.g. find some js code examples that do things similar to what you want and imitate them).
I wish I could find a good discussion of javascript "namespaces" and Firefox hacking. My guess is that there is some contium. Bookmarklets only give you access to DOM stuff, GreaseMonkey [mozdev.org] exposes certain hooks into Firefox, Extensions expose more Firefox hooks, and hacking Firefox lets you do anything.
security (Score:3, Funny)
My wife downloaded the fox at her work and then the security person found out. Well, she was told that this new browser was 'a security threat.' And she has to use IE for 'security reasons.'
That was supposed to be ironic, I hope you understand.
Re:Validity of the article linked to? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Validity of the article linked to? (Score:2)
But seriously, Firefox is fantastic and more accolades are coming soon.
Re:Validity of the article linked to? (Score:2)
You might have a valid point if the article was talking about market share being up 237%; or even if it said that Firefox usage was up 237%. However, it wasn't-- it was talking about visits to the firefox site. Oops.
BTW, if we're talking about visits for your site, it looks like visits by firefox users are up 225% for your site in that timespan-- from 2293 to 7452.
Re:Nielsen? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nielsen? (Score:2, Informative)
I can't seem to find a description of Neilsen's methodology, but if they are reporting male:female ratios, then they are using data beyond things like web bugs, and so I would be inclined to trust these figures far more than other organisations, including any data we could cull from
Re:Nielsen? (Score:5, Informative)
From there the site owners would have access to an online reporting tool that is quite good.
AFAIK, RedSheriff didn't share or use their customers' site traffic logs for any purpose other than to report back to the site whose logs they were. Nielson may have re-jigged their privacy policy to allow it.
Adblock (Score:3, Interesting)
I've installed Firefox on three workmates computers, most of my family's computers... and all have Adblock installed using my filters as a starting point... not one of them would load the Red Sherrif code.
Re:Nielsen? (Score:5, Interesting)
You'll often find this task is accomplished by "web bugs", tiny 1x1 .GIF images that have no purpose other than to go to a third party to indicate the page was viewed, by what IP address, etc. They'll frequently try to give you cookies, too, in order to study browser habits. (I always block these cookies when requested, just to be obstinate.)
Re:Nielsen? (Score:3, Interesting)
Are there web advertisements that are simply "brand builders"? For example, I wouldn't expect consumers to click
Re:Nielsen? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nielsen? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:DUH! (Score:5, Insightful)
I know thats why I switched and i wouldn't be shocked if I'm not the only one.
Re:Men? Women? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Men? Women? (Score:2, Interesting)
Guess they just stole some idea from there for this statistic
Re:Opera is more efficient. (Score:2, Informative)
Most important to me, once a page is loaded, accessing it is instant in Opera. Say you click on several links. You can go "back" any number of pages and each one instantly appears, without reloading or any of that inconvenient stuff.
That's because Opera follows the HTTP 1.1 specification, and other browsers, including Firefox, are non-compliant. RFC 2616 says:
Re:Opera is more efficient. (Score:2, Informative)
To summarize: not following a "SHOULD NOT" in any RFC does not make something noncompliant.
Re:It's the name, stupid. (Score:2)
Re:HOW DO THEY KNOW (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Women in the minority (Score:5, Funny)
Me: You know those programs there are trojans, don't you?
Her: No hun, they're my little proggies... and anyway, I've got antivirus, so can't damage my machine anyway!
Me: You have antivirus? Surely that'd stop them running - how come you can still run them?
Her: Oh, when I run them now I get a red box come up that tells me it's a dangerous program or whatever, but it has a 'Run Anyway' option so it's OK.
Me: Umm.. you realise that choosing 'Run Anyway'... lets it do all the nasty stuff it was trying to do before the AntiVirus stopped it, don't you?
Her: Yeah, but it's OK, cos it's AntiVirus!
Me: Have you ever *run* a scan on it?
Her: Yeah, but it deleted them all, and I had to download them all again! Then the boxes came back!
Me: Because they're trying to tell you that they're fucking TROJANS!
Her: But it's OK, I've got AntiVirus!
Me: THAT'S WHAT THE FUCKING RED BOXES ARE! AND YOU'RE TELLING IT IT'S OK TO RUN THEM!
This went on for a good 20 minutes, went nowhere, and in the end I just went into the configuration and 'turned the red boxes off'. She was happy with that.
Her computer is fucked. She still thinks she's a 1337 hax0r.
It's cute now I'm not the one that has to clean it up.