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Mozilla The Internet

Firefox Achieves 10% Global Market Share 405

Posted by Zonk from the foxy dept.
sebFlyte writes "ZDNet is reporting that according to OneStat's latest figures, Firefox has passed the 10 percent market share mark. At 11.5 percent, it's still got a long way to go to reach Internet Explorer's 85.5 percent, but it's heading in the right direction. The report also mentions some odd geographical variation: Firefox's market share is almost three times higher in the US than UK, for example." From the article: "...other companies have noticed a decline in Firefox over recent months. Last month, Web applications provider NetApplications reported that the open source browser's share of the market dropped by 0.7 percentage points from August to September. Although this wasn't the first time that Firefox' share has dropped, RedMonk analyst James Governor said he believes the overall trend for Firefox is upwards."
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Firefox Achieves 10% Global Market Share More

Firefox Achieves 10% Global Market Share

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  • Firefox is on the up!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bongoots ( 795869 ) * on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:04AM (#13940780)
    Download Mozilla Firefox [mozilla.org]!

    Mozilla's browsers global usage share is still growing according to OneStat.com

    Amsterdam - November 2 2005 - OneStat.com (www.onestat.com [onestat.com]), the number one provider of real-time web analytics, today reported that Mozilla's browsers have a total global usage share of 11.51 percent. The total usage share of Mozilla increased 2.82 percent since April 2005. Microsoft's Internet Explorer still dominates the global browser market with a global usage share of 85.45 percent which is 1.18 percent less as at the end of April.

    "The global usage share of Mozilla's browsers is still growing and it seems that Netscape users and some Internet Explorer users are switching to the Firefox version. It also looks like that browser users of Internet Explorer for Apple's Mac are switching to Safari because the global usage share is still growing. It is also interesting to see that Microsoft's Internet Explorer has less global usage share in the USA as in the UK. Mozilla's browsers are more popular in USA and Canada as in the UK" said Niels Brinkman, co-founder of OneStat.com.

    The most popular browsers on the web are:

    1. Microsoft IE = 85.45 %
    2. Mozilla Firefox = 11.51 %
    3. Apple Safari = 1.75 %
    4. Netscape = 0.26 %
    5. Opera = 0.77 %

    Source: http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox40_bro wser_market_firefox_growing.html [onestat.com]

    Nearly 17% of Canada, over 14% of the USA and just under 5% of the UK use Firefox!!

    • Re:Firefox is on the up!! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GoodOmens ( 904827 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:08AM (#13940820) Homepage
      I just can't wait until we see sites declaring "Page will not render correctly under Microsoft IE".

      Too many pages require IE for Firefox to be 100% usefull (although thankfully thats declining).

      • I have seen some sites that declare that IE will not work on their sites. I tried them in IE and they worked fine, tried them in Firefox, worked fine. Most people that put "Will only work with IE" most likely don't know if it will work or not, or use ActiveX anyways.

        • Re:Firefox is on the up!! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by IAmTheDave ( 746256 ) <basenamedave-sd@y a h o o . c om> on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:55AM (#13941297) Homepage Journal
          Personally, I find zealotry towards any browser annoying. Fact is that people use different browsers. It's not rocket science to code cross-browser and still be standards compliant.

          I mean, yeah, Firefox is vastly superior to IE, but I wouldn't make a website that was incompatible with either.
          • Agreed, that's all we need. We go to all the trouble of promoting a superior alternative that makes the market competitive again, and what do we do? Push for a new monopolist? No way.

    • Re:Firefox is on the up!! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by stecoop ( 759508 ) * on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:16AM (#13940896) Journal
      4. Netscape = 0.26 %
      5. Opera = 0.77 %

      I don't think I would trust statistics from someone that puts .77% below .26%. Talk about making the number look like you want huh?

  • Not much further to go (Score:5, Funny)

    by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:06AM (#13940798) Homepage Journal
    Once websites start working better with the standard adhering Firefox browser, IE use will begin to drop off as it will annoy users by not showing pages correctly.

    "11.5 percent, it's still got a long way to go to reach Internet Explorer's 85.5 percent"
    It only needs to make it to 50% + 1%, at least that's what Quebec Seperatists would have us believe.
    • Once websites start working better with the standard adhering Firefox browser, IE use will begin to drop off as it will annoy users by not showing pages correctly.

      Take my bank for instance. Their online banking doesn't work all that well in any other browser than IE. I don't use Firefox but I do use Safari and a mobile browser. It doesn't work in either... Their response? "Use IE."

      So, just because the market share is there and growing, doesn't mean that all sites are going to code for it. I switched a

      • Re:Not much further to go (Score:5, Insightful)

        by schon ( 31600 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:21AM (#13940944)
        Take my bank for instance. Their online banking doesn't work all that well in any other browser than IE.

        Not all banks are like that, and you can always switch banks (or threaten to switch.)

        I bank with TD/Canada Trust. I use their internet banking every day, and it works perfectly in Firefox.

        Let them know that "Use IE" is not an acceptable answer.
        • Sadly even TDCT isn't Firefox compatible yet. It may work for most things, but I've had it throw Firefox a few errors. During the Spell a word promotion contest, it forgot to display my free letter after a transaction. And I've had it tell me that it couldn't log in and to call the bank. I used IE instead, right away, and it worked no problem, then Firefox started working again.
        • For many many people out there I'm sure that there are many more important factors to decide on when choosing a bank rather than your favourite browser just not working on it.
          My bank (Barclays, UK) happens to work fine with Firefox, but I would fire IE up through Wine if I had to.

          The fact is everything works in IE and I can understand the UK not having as many Firefox users as people in the UK just don't seem to care that there might be something better out there. I've seen really bad Windows XP desktops

      • Banks charging for internet usage ? What is this 1996 ?

        Banks should encourage more and more people to go paper less and use online banking from what ever device the user prefers.. it saves them paper, time and money.

        I have used quite a lot banks' online banking without any problems in firefox, on rare occasion I have to set the user agent to IE , but never actually have to use IE.

      • First IB [firstib.com] works fine, has 1.26% interest on their checking to boot! NetBank [netbank.com] isn't bad either. C'mon, you're on Slashdot, you're probably a geek, go with an Online bank. If you're paranoid like me, do both online and brick and mortar. (Oh? I lost my checkcard. Damn. Let me transfer my money and use my other checkcard while waiting for the other to arrive. Sorry paranoid+bad luck).

        Not the best interfaces though, it's really lacking compared to most banks, but you can do everything you've ever needed on it. Ban
    • The only reason I can't use Firefox 100% of the time is Yahoo! Stattracker. I know I am a fantasy football nerd, but this app WILL NOT run under Firefox.

      I agree with the parent; if more sites (especially the larger ones) offered proper compliance, it would be much easier for people to give up IE entirely.

      I think that part of the problem in getting web developers to support firefox in addition to IE is that IE exists in addition to firefox on 90% of these machines. The logic is probably something like, "Why

    • Re:Not much further to go (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:30AM (#13941038) Homepage
      I don't foresee web developers dropping support for IE for as long as IE has a substantial install base. They'll start supporting Firefox in addition to IE.

      However, this still might be bad news for Microsoft, and may lead to a drop in IE use anyhow. The reason is, if they're supporting Firefox, then they're more likely to be following real standards, and paying attention to their cross-browser incompatibility. This means fewer pages will be IE only, and pages developed for Firefox (and therefore more towards real standards) are very likely to work in any standards-compliant browser.

      10% might be enough that poorly-written IE-only pages will be viewed as a problem. Once there's no penalty for using a non-IE browser, we may see more people switching.

  • Great (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Da Fokka ( 94074 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:07AM (#13940800) Homepage
    At 10% FireFox is starting to become interesting to malware producers. I guess I'll switch to Opera.

    • And it's free, too! (Score:3, Informative)

      by roscivs ( 923777 )
      With Opera recently becoming free (as in beer), there's no better time to switch. Most of the important functionality from Firefox is there (and incidentally was there first), even most of the things that require plugins for Firefox (automatic saving of tabs, mouse gestures, ability to "undo" closing a page, etc). And it has far better (in my opinion) single-key shortcuts (no CTRL or ALT modifier required) to do things like maneuver around a page without using the mouse, switch tabs, increase/decrease font

    • Re:Great (Score:5, Funny)

      by eln ( 21727 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:29AM (#13941029)
      If you're worried about malware, you should switch to a browser that has little chance of ever becoming the dominant browser. While you might think Opera is the obvious choice for this, I think there's a better one [browser.org].
    • Yes but how easy is it for these malware producers to actually put that malware on your PC...not as easy as IE me thinks.

    • Yes its not the browser (Score:5, Insightful)

      by wombatmobile ( 623057 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:32AM (#13941062)

      At 10% FireFox is starting to become interesting to malware producers. I guess I'll switch to Opera.

      That's what's good about web standards. It's becoming increasingly possibly for you to make a choice like that because content less and less tied to one browser.

      FF and Opera are both commited to implementing and supporting web standards like XML, SVG, and CSS. The bigger share they get, the more reason people have to develop standards-compliant content.

      A virtuous cycle.

  • Donations accepted? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BrentRJones ( 68067 )
    Don't the "makers" of Firefox need cash?

    If NPR has pledge drives, shouldn't the Open Source movement?

    Just asking.

    • Re:Donations accepted? (Score:4, Informative)

      by dasil003 ( 907363 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:12AM (#13940853) Homepage
      Of course they need donations:

      Donate Today! [mozilla.org]
    • They would be more than happy to take your donation [mozilla.org].
    • A lot of open source projects accept donations and feature donation icons on their web page. While I don't think it is necessarily true, but it would seem that there is danger in creating the perception is that open source is beggarware.

      It does take a lot of time and energy to make a useful program and I do think that financial support can be a good motivator, though there might be weaknesses.
      • I think the key is to be low-key about the donations. Mozilla has a little text-link at the bottom of the page. If they got in your face about it, and claimed that they really needed your donation or they wouldn't be able to survive, it'd run counter to the goal of appearing stable, reliable, and professional.

        But indeed, they take donations.

    • If NPR has pledge drives, shouldn't the Open Source movement?

      How, by cutting to a boring guy going on and on for 20 minutes about the great service Open Source is for every 5 minutes of web browsing?

      I can just see it now: I'm watching a porno^H^H^H^H^Heducational video online, and suddenly it cuts out and is replaced by a voice saying "Open Source software provides you with access to a variety of interesting and informative content. But we couldn't do it without contributions from our viewers. We have a

  • FF is winning, who is losing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:08AM (#13940817)
    I think an important bit of data would be to have been told in the synopsis whether FF's growth comes at the expense of IE, or the other smaller browsers (Opera, etc). If it's simply killing off the weaker browsers, then the news really isn't that good, but if it's really taking share away from IE, then that really is important.
    • I think this is the wrong attitude for proponents of open source software.

      OSS is not in competition with closed-source software and thus we shouldn't care about market share. We should simply be happy that our products are useful and successful in general.

      If anything, the real reason to enjoy an increased market share is that it implies an increased total usage, and that this in turn implies that more people will be willing to participate actively in its development and extension.

      (Not that I don'

      • Re:FF is winning, who is losing (Score:5, Insightful)

        by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:42AM (#13941157) Homepage
        I think this is one instance where we should care about total usage (which is what I think they mean here). The real reason is that there's no pressure on web developers to code according to W3C standards (as opposed to Microsoft standards) unless their users are using non-Microsoft browsers. Likewise, Microsoft feels no pressure to make their browser compliant with W3C standards until web-developers demand it.

        Therefore, if we want a free web where any browser can allow users to interact with any page properly, we, as customers, need to choose non-Microsoft browsers for our daily needs. The point isn't to run MS out of business, but to gain enough hits on major web sites to force Microsoft into standards-complaince.

  • Apple's Safari Is Up Too (Score:5, Interesting)

    by skrysakj ( 32108 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:08AM (#13940818) Homepage Journal
    And Apple's Safari, supposedly, just hit roughly 3% [hitslink.com]. Are these percentages
    better indicators of OS market share than actual purchase levels which don't
    take into account pre-existing machines already in use?
    • It would be, except that not everyone with a Mac uses Safari. For instance, I have Safari, but I mostly use firefox. There are people with Macs who use Internet Explorer (the older ones that had mac support), and there are even people who still use OS 9. So I think we can assume that anyone using Safari uses a Mac, but that doesn't give us an upper bound of who uses macs, just a lower one.

  • Sad thing is... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rAiNsT0rm ( 877553 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:09AM (#13940825) Homepage
    A guy in my company was chastised for having Firefox on his computer. He tried to explain he was *helping* but they made him remove it and gave him an earful. Later, I explained all of the features and benefits... they still didn't want it on any company PC's and have no clue as to what it even is. Pretty sad.

    • Re:Sad thing is... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ninja_assault_kitten ( 883141 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:12AM (#13940855)
      No, it's not sad. Allowing employees to install unsupported/unmanaged applications is a critical mistake from a security perspective. By doing so, if and when vulnerabilities are found they must leave it up to the employee to make sure they've applied that patch. Clearly not a good idea.

      • Re:Sad thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by shish ( 588640 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:15AM (#13940885) Homepage
        Allowing employees to install unsupported/unmanaged applications is a critical mistake from a security perspective

        And forcing them to use IE isn't? :p

        • Re:Sad thing is... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by PornMaster ( 749461 )
          Not that it'd be the sanest way to secure anything, but if IE is locked down to use a proxy, but port 80 is still open outbound, then Firefox is getting around the security policy, as flawed as it may be.

          Alternately, if the user can set up a proxy of his own, SSH tunneled outbound, having the ability to use that proxy in Firefox vs. a locked down IE means that he can violate the security policy as well.

          Managing risk is the company's business. Part of managing risk is knowing what the risk is, and accountin

          • Re:Sad thing is... (Score:3, Interesting)

            by TheSpoom ( 715771 ) *
            If your security policy relies on Internet Explorer-specific system policies, then you already have worse problems. Security at the firewall and server, not so much the workstation.

      • Re:Sad thing is... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 )
        On the other hand, making people use known problematic software isn't a bright idea either.

        Firefox can and does self-patch automatically. That update system even works in the Deer Park nightlies.
      • Well a quick look at secunia will tell them that Internet Explorer sure looks unsupported and should be banned from the network. ;D

      • Re:Sad thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by frodo from middle ea ( 602941 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:39AM (#13941137) Homepage
        I don't think the GP was sad that the guy was not allowed to install FF. what he was sad about was that the sysadmins at the workplace had never heard of what firefox is, let alone know that it is much much more secure than IE., which shows not only lack of knowledge on their part as well as poor software auditing practices.

        I onced worked at such a place, IE/Outlook only and had to remove FF/TB when I installed it. The problem is , every time a worm was on the loose, these guys would lose half the pcs in the network and kept sending emails about not opening emails containing so-and-so subject.

        Having a strict software control policy is good if only it helps in achiving the target goal of a secure and stable network. Otherwise it preety much works like DRM, locks out honest folks and the pirates are not even affected by it.

      • Re:Sad thing is... (Score:3, Informative)

        by rbarreira ( 836272 )
        Here is the solution for that - Portable Firefox [johnhaller.com]. It doesn't require installing.

    • Re:Sad thing is... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nate B. ( 2907 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:16AM (#13940891) Homepage Journal
      Based on conversations I've had with some that work in our corporate headquarters, the Software Business Alliance (SBA) apparently has them convinced that FF, OOo, and friends are "licensed for personal use only" and these people believe the company will be billed a significant sum for such "improperly licensed software".

      Perhaps the SBA is carrying on its excellent work in your company as well.

      • Re:Sad thing is... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by jawtheshark ( 198669 ) *
        FF, OOo, and friends are "licensed for personal use only" and these people believe the company will be billed a significant sum for such "improperly licensed software".

        And the SBA is right of course! They will be billed the gargantuous amount of 0$/seat!!! On top of that they will have to pay a 150% fine on the total amount! Better stick to the Free Internet Explorer and the properly licensed Microsoft Office 2003 (Latest version is not optional says SBA!)

        Of course, I'm sure that neither OpenOffice

      • Forgive me if I'm wrong -- but don't you mean the Business Software Alliance [bsa.org] (BSA)?

    • Re:Sad thing is... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by malsdavis ( 542216 ) *
      I had this happen to me also when I installed Firefox on my work machine some time ago. I was called into the M.D.'s office to explain why I had committed a 'serious breach of office protocol' in installing a program I think the computer guy had told him was some sort of internet game!

      I stated how I simply prefered the cleanliness of tabbed browsing and alerted hime about the constant security threats associated with Internet Explorer and within a week the whole company had Firefox installed on their comput

  • Higher for some websites. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HugePedlar ( 900427 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:10AM (#13940833) Homepage
    My website doesn't render properly with IE, and I get quite a few visits from various tech sites. Firefox's market share for my site is therefore around the 20-25% mark.

    I'd be interested to see how the content and target audience affects the browser distribution at various websites.

    P.S. Please don't visit my site. It's rather dull, and I'd prefer not to break it.
    • Heh, nice going -- I bet you're on the brink of a Slashdotting right about now.
    • I'd be interested to see how the content and target audience affects the browser distribution at various websites.
      I'd be interested to see the distribution for Slashdot. I have a feeling a lot of the posers here talk the talk but don't walk the walk of Open Source, alternative OS's, etc. D'ya think IE is less than 50% here?

  • Good news but... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by squoozer ( 730327 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:10AM (#13940837)

    ...how much can we trust those figures? Not a lot I would say. In particular I find the 3* as much FireFox usage in the US compared to the UK disturbing. I would expect the two nations to have roughly the same uptake rate since they are braodly similar. I would also expect other European nations to have a slightly high uptake rate (as has been shown in other result). Perhaps the figure is absolute rather than per 1000 people or maybe there is some error in their recording which causes people browsing from unknown countries to get lumped in with America. Either way without an explanation it casts doubt, in my eye, on the validity of the results.

    • Re:Good news but... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Nate B. ( 2907 )
      This is anecdotable "evidence" at its worst:

      I belong to a web board that has a number of European members. Sometimes the topic of web browsers comes up and a couple of them have stated time and again they are sticking with IE. Exactly why, I am not sure, but it's interesting to speculate on the reasons, for me at least.

      Is there a cultural attitude at work here? Are Europeans more easy going and North Americans more willing to try new things? Perhaps since we Americans tend to cheer for the "underdog" we

    • Re:Good news but... (Score:4, Informative)

      by arkhan_jg ( 618674 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @11:38AM (#13941742)
      Actually, it doesn't suprise me in the least. According to symantec in march, 25% of the world's PC zombies [bbc.co.uk] were in the UK. (strangely though, the UK has only a handful of the direct spammers)

      Both the high zombie rate and the low firefox use shows that computer literacy in the UK is somewhat lacking, despite the high broadband uptake. I do a lot of work on people's computers privately, as well as being a sysadmin for my day job, and virtually all of them wouldn't know what firefox was if it bit them on the ass. If it didn't come installed on the computer when they bought it, with a thick manual, then they're not interested. They also tend to hang onto computers for a looong time. I was fixing a windows 95a machine only last week.

      They regularly call internet explorer 'the internet' - as in, "it doesn't work when I click on 'the internet', it just says some message which I don't remember. Is it broken?" It's no surprise to me that most people haven't investigated firefox here, they don't even install a firewall, spyware or virus checker.
  • And writing emails to these guys doesn't help. Just in the last week I came across two websites: Audi Belgium [www.audi.be] and ALS Verlag [als-verlag.de]. Both sites majorly fuck up on navigation.

    The first one pissed me off because the .de and .com versions don't seem to have problems. The second one was problematic because my wife wanted to order something and didn't understand why the website was broken (Firefox is mandatory at my home). She blamed the website though, but I had to show her Internet Explorer so she could order the stuff she needed.

    • She blamed the website though, but I had to show her Internet Explorer so she could order the stuff she needed.
      You should show her the IE Tab [mozilla.org] extension.
    • Never again pure IE, atleast use avant browser. IE based engine and no pop-ups , activex /java disabled. javascript much tightly controlled.

      Also install "Open in IE" extension and configure it to use avant browser. Remove all shortcuts to IE or avant browser, and make FF use mandatory. For sites that don't run properly , just right click and do "Open in IE".

    • Sadly, despite your letter writing, you still fired up IE and gave them business. Unless there is ZERO suitable competition to purchase from, then a better approach would be to have written and let them know that their named competition did receive your business due to their unrestrictive Web site.

      Pushing for Free Software and open formats/protocols is not easy and it does require some sacrifice of convenience. Some people only understand the bottom line.

  • Browser use (Score:2, Interesting)

    by smokeslikeapoet ( 598750 )
    If I were to guess I would say that people who use Firefox spend a whole lot more free time on the web that people that suffer with IE.

    This figure does not take in to account browser choice. I would also surmise that most people who use a web browser at work are forced to click the big blue "E".

    At my computer labs at school we do have a choice between IE or Firefox. The IE icon is in it's default desktop location underneath My Computer and My documents. I imagine this is clicked out of habit rather th

  • More like 50% here... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tcopeland ( 32225 ) * <tom@th[ ]sleecopeland.com ['oma' in gap]> on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:15AM (#13940884) Homepage
    ...of course, that's on a rather technical web site, RubyForge. Numbers are here [blogs.com].
  • Oh stop it stop it, look here, you can't become a bloody fiscal hermit crab every time the Firefox undergoes a self-correction. Firefox's market has no where to go but up.

    (With apologies to Family Guy)

  • A ways to go. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dasil003 ( 907363 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:17AM (#13940903) Homepage
    For web developers the important thing is that we've passed the first inflection point: that is, companies can no longer afford to ignore Firefox.

    But we're still a long way from the second inflection point: where can stop hacking to support IE (6, maybe 7). That's not happening for a long time, but if you look back 5 years, supporting IE 6 is really a piece of cake compared to IE 5, NS 4, etc.

  • An interesting side note (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OneSeventeen ( 867010 ) * on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:18AM (#13940916) Homepage Journal

    According to somefakewebsite.com, which was created just a few moments ago as an imaginary source of invalid figures for the entertainment of others (or isifeo, as we like to call it here at randomslashdotcomments inc.), The number of windows viruses has decreased by another 1% due in part to the decreased use of web browsers that let websites install software on your computer, and also due to Norton's virus writing labs not keeping up with their anti-virus labs. (but marketing is right on schedule!)

    It is also interesting to note that the linux virus ratio has increased to an estimated 0.01% this month, which is partly due to the windows users that recently switched to linux and installed the Bonzai Buddy via Wine, and the number of pop-tarts in my office has just decreased by 1 serving. ... make that 2 servings.

    On a more serious note, I wonder what the market share ratio would be like if Internet Explorer wasn't part of the windows operating system.

    • "On a more serious note, I wonder what the market share ratio would be like if Internet Explorer wasn't part of the windows operating system."

      What good would it serve the consumer to get a machine that doesn't include a web browsing application?

      People who complain about Microsoft's bundling remind me of people who complain about Wallmart. Wallmart provides an excellent variety of products at an enforced quality level for a very low price. They are giving consumers exactly what the want, and they do i

  • The headline is somehow misleading (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:19AM (#13940922)
    The headline should have the word "alleged" somewhere in realtion to the Firefox market share.

    Why? Because there exists no proof that all parties involved in market share tracking can agree on. I will not be surprised if anoher party comes up and says something to the effect..."not so fast Firefox..."

  • I use Firefox and Opera quite a bit. My objective is to become Microsoft free, but it's still difficult. On one of my machines I am almost totally able to avoid using IE, but there are still times when it's the only way to see what's going on, and of course Microsoft also locks WindowsUpdate to it.

    An especially annoying aspect is that my company talks a lot about offering non-Microsoft solutions, but many of our internal applications are locked to IE. It's getting better, and Firefox has the official stat

  • School kids can't choose... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DaoudaW ( 533025 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:22AM (#13940953)
    Web applications provider NetApplications reported that the open source browser's share of the market dropped by 0.7 percentage points from August to September

    I couldn't verify it in TFA, but my first thought is that millions of kids go back to school around the end of August and begin using a browser which they haven't chosen. So it probably doesn't mean anything except that schools tend to not be early adopters.

  • Neat thing about wearing Firefox logo'd gear (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    People stop you to ask about it, or give you a knowing nod. It's like being part of a special club.
  • The company said that Mozilla's browser now has a global market share of 11.5 percent, an increase of 2.8 percentage points since April.

    If MS was promoting this it would be touted as a 24% increase in usage! And market share numbers would not even be mentioned. (It worked for NT...)

    Showing my work for math nazies
    (2.8/11.5*100=24%)
    • Your math is wrong. The *growth* is from 8.7% to 11.5%; so the correct calculation is (2.8/8.7) * 100 = 32%.

      Your calculation would be right for: the old number is 24% lower. This busines of growth catches a lot of people.

  • Now...you have a revolution (Score:3, Insightful)

    by beforewisdom ( 729725 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:27AM (#13941011)
    I am a free(dom) software user and fan. However, whenever I hear talk about ___ software being a revolution I always dismiss it as hype. It is not revolution until a piece of software has at least double digit market share.

    I am happy to see that in the case of Firefox, that is is NOW, indeed, a revolution.

    Steve
    • How Microsoft is being constantly attacked by the competition right now?

      DB: Oracle just launched its free database.
      Browsers: Firefox, Opera
      Office: OpenOffice.org + Google initiative muahahahaha!
      OS: Linux + Wine
      Servers: Apache
      Microsoft .NET: Mono

      Compared to five years ago, Microsoft is now living a nightmare (No wonder Ballmer began throwing chairs and everything).

      Just a thought.

  • Sex sells (Score:3, Funny)

    by Isomorph ( 760856 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:29AM (#13941032)
    I am working to spread the firefox browser.

    We all know that sex sells.

    So try to look at this site http://www.thelovesearch.com/ [thelovesearch.com] using Microsoft
    Internet Explore. It will try to convince your to use Firefox using
    sex appeal.

    If we could convince all porn sites to only support Firefox the battle
    would be won in a few weeks.

    Or am I dreaming now ??

  • Opera (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DaPoulpe ( 795028 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:30AM (#13941041) Homepage Journal

    • IE - 85.5%
    • Firefox - 11.5%
    • Safari - 3%
    • Opera - ?

    Is Opera UA still stuck on IE by default ?
    Would be nice to be able to monitor Opera market share, especialy since it got Free (as in Beer)...
  • I can't wait for 1.5 to come out. Why? Auto-update. Yes this may be abused, or not trusted, but think about Safari; it's always up to date, or at least is after a few clicks. With FF 1.5 I can leave my Mom's computer alone knowing that her browser will be the safest out there as any vulns will be dealth with/installed ASAP. I see this as being a MAJOR improvement over MS, which last I checked, forced you to jump thru hoops to keep IE up to date.

  • diversity, not domination please (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:35AM (#13941095)
    At 11.5 percent, it's still got a long way to go to reach Internet Explorer's 85.5 percent, but it's heading in the right direction

    You know, it's exactly that attitude of "world domination" that got the Web into the mess it is today. Firefox is not for everyone. I don't want to see it become "what you have to use whether you like it or not", because we've been down that road.

    What is nice to see is that users of alternative browsers do make more than single-digit percentages, which of course means they're harder to dismiss. If Apple, The Mozilla Foundation, and Opera can all assure they take the high road at all times with regards to fixing rendering/parsing/etc bugs, MS won't be guaranteed to be the same, but it'll certainly make life easier on web designers.

    If designers have to somehow work around 3, 4, 5 different browsers' rendering habits and bugs- things will be a disaster, they'll be frustrated and tempted to just support IE and "the next biggest fish", etc.

    Also- I hope all the non-IE browsers are now 'shipping' by default with their own browser strings, not set to pretend to be IE...

  • Ugh. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dep01 ( 730107 )
    I can't believe 9 out of 10 people still fire up IE to surf the web. *deep sigh*
  • To catch IE, asuming all new firefox users are IE converts.

  • Explanation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Arthur B. ( 806360 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:54AM (#13941285)
    "Web applications provider NetApplications reported that the open source browser's share of the market dropped by 0.7 percentage points from August to September."

    Sure... it's the new school year, new computers ship with IE installed, I am not surprised at all.

  • familiaritIE? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:58AM (#13941328) Homepage Journal
    My employees install Firefox for 90% of our customer base. hey delete all IE icons and references. Yet within weeks almost 90% of the customers are back to using IE. The reason? Familiarity.

    I can't figure it out. I'm no OSS fanboi, but IE sucks. Why the addiction for so many?

    • Anecdote. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Rowan_u ( 859287 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @01:33PM (#13942851)
      I've had Firefox installed on my wife's computer since before the 1.0 release. I deleted all the shortcuts to IE, and after that just assumed she was using it. Until looking over her shoulder one day, asking her about a movie, I see that she gets to the internet by opening up the start menu, and clicking on windows update . . . shudder. Some people do like Internet Explorer, and will go through extra means to get to it. My wife doesn't know how to recreate desktop shortcuts, but did remember that windows update runs on IE. Hence, she was able to fill up her windows machine with spyware despite my precautions. I haven't figured out what the appeal for IE is yet, maybe she enjoys clicking on the giant stacks of IE windows in the taskbar, and painfully locating the site she was just on.

  • don't need 85% to beat IE... (Score:4, Funny)

    by fanblade ( 863089 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @10:58AM (#13941329) Journal
    At 11.5 percent, it's still got a long way to go to reach Internet Explorer's 85.5 percent

    Yeah, I can't wait until IE and Firefox are at 85.5%!

  • Will the next version help? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lord Byron II ( 671689 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @11:05AM (#13941397)
    I can only imagine that the next major release of Firefox (1.5) will cause another wave of Firefox adoption. Personally, I am currently not pushing Firefox that strongly since I know that if I help someone install 1.0.7 today, I'll have to do the same thing with 1.5 in a few weeks. But I will once again be pushing the browser heavily once a new, production-version of the browser is ready. Also a new release means new publicity. I think 1.5 will easily push Firefox into the 15-20% range.

  • Learn Your Statistics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @11:09AM (#13941433) Homepage Journal
    the overall trend for Firefox is upwards.

    That's the point. There are too many people in the news business today who only went to one week of statistics in university, the one where they were told how to "lie with statistics" (and yes, my prof had a special lecture about that in his curriculum).

    Posting "Firefox down 0.7%" one month, and another "Firefox share declines again" a few months later is misleading and dishonest if it refers to two dips in an overal upwards trend. Everyone who's ever done statistics knows that very few graphs are monotonously rising, and even the strong rising ones have some dips in them.

    The overal longterm trend can be calculated and extrapolated, and it's much more important than what it's been up or down this week, except on the stock exchange where you can actually make money on a moment-by-moment trading basis.

  • Finland 34 %, Germany 24.1 % (Score:4, Informative)

    by TimoP ( 551026 ) on Thursday November 03, 2005 @11:36AM (#13941724) Homepage
    Europe is far ahead. Take a look at Xiti's map: http://www.xitimonitor.com/etudes/equipement11.asp [xitimonitor.com]

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