Posted on 08/26/2005 6:31:03 PM PDT by Bush2000
Firefox's 'retreat' ensures Microsoft excels
Open source web browser Firefox has lost the momentum it has steadily gained since it was unleashed last year, according to Web analysts at Net Applications.
The online portal’s unique Hit List service reveals a slump in the Mozilla browser’s market share, falling from 8.7% to 8.1 % in July.
Coinciding with its demise, was the advance of Microsoft's IE that has gained some of the ground surrendered in June, climbing back from 86.6 % to 87.2% last month.
The revival for the dominant browser comes on the back of average monthly losses of between .5 to 1% for Redmond, as Firefox started to gain acceptance among a wider audience than just tech-savvy users.
When asked by Contractor UK whether Microsoft’s sudden gains were from the unveiling of a new IE, Net Applications said a re-launch tends revive industry interest, and could have bolstered Microsoft’s market share of the browser market.
When a company launches a new product, there is always renewed interest in what the company has produced and it would also be fair to say that this may have had an effect, said a member of the Hit List team.
Although, there have been browser issues with Windows 2000 in the news, so it is possible that again you may see a dip [in Microsoft’s market share]. Right now, people are looking for security and whenever there are issues with the security of one's system, they will use what they feel will be the most secure.”
Besides Net Applications, web developer site W3 Schools, confirms that adoption of Firefox is falling, just as IE is reaching its highest share of the market in 2005.
According to W3's data on specialist users, Microsoft IE (6) enjoyed a 67.9% share in July, improving to 68.1% in August matched against Firefox’s top share of 21% in May, which has now dropped to 19.8% for the last two months.
Observers noted that both sets of analysis concur that Microsoft’s loss, up until now, has been Firefox’s gain, but over the last month roles have reversed.
Security fears concerning Mozilla and its browser product have recently emerged, coinciding with Microsoft’s high-profile trumpeting of its new safer browser product (IE 7), complete with glossy logo.
Experts at Net Applications said they were surprised at Firefox’s sudden retreat, saying they expected a slow down before any decline.
Yet they told CUK: “Whenever there may be problems with security, there always is a decline with users changing browsers.”
Data from the Web analytics company is based on 40,000 users, gleaned from their global internet operations, prompting some commentators to question the so-called ‘global decline’ in the Firefox market share.
The Counter.com reportedly finds that between June and July, Firefox actually increased its share by two points, and overtook IE5 for the first time ever.
The Web Standard Project suggests webmasters should treat data from web analysis providers with caution, before rushing to make service changes.
So what can we conclude?” asks the WSP, a grass roots project fighting for open access to web technologies.
“Not much: Mozilla-based browsers are probably used by just under 10% of the web audience and their share is growing slowly. IE5.x is probably used by somewhat less than that and its share is declining slowly. IE6 is roughly holding steady.”
Meanwhile, Spread Firefox, which measures actual download rates of the browser, reports that it took just one month for the Mozilla Foundation’s showpiece to reach 80 million downloads in August – from its July total of 70 million.
At the time of writing, Firefox had been downloaded 80701444 times, meaning adoption rates of over 10m occurred one month after Net Applications says Firefox bolted in light of the dominant IE.
You mean quotes from your own source were nonsensical?
I posted a response. You can address it or walk away. But don't waste my time.
So then I cant expect you on every MS thread pissing and moaning about china and communism?
If you want to say a full redhat install with all packages has more bugs than just MS windows on its own, fine but that is verbalizing the weakness in the study, printing a graph and leaving out the weaknesses in methodology in the study where the graph came from is pretty lame, and very dceptive. After all Oracle a closed source company would have led the list if they went by security vulnerabilities but was not even on the list by vendor listed updates.
A better comparison would be Equivalent systems a windows desktop vs a Linux desktop (that would be no apache, no bind, no ldap server, ....) even then there is the issue of what do we count vendor patches or the number of bugs they address? and then there is always the fact OSS bugs get reported far more easily than those of closed source companies like MS and Oracle..
My point was echoed within your own article... maybe you should read what you link before you put up something that damns your own case, just don't pout about it now, The post is not some ball you cant take home, its here for all to see how quick you are to embrace a meaningless graph (or numbers) without actually caring how the numbers were generated and get upset when someone throws you're own evidence at you..
Beaten up by his own graph and article... bqhahahaha
"Microsoft scores well on security analysis"
I do a lot of pentest work, clients range from midsize to fortune 100 companies.
Almost all the time we can get domain admin within a day or two. A coworker recently did it in 8 minutes.
Scores well? Not in real life.
But I'm a dim user of Linux. I installed everything to be cool. So am I vulnerable or not? Just like so many dim users of windows install everything. But that's M$ fault when users do dim things. When dim users do stupid things with Linux it's the users fault.
I see how this works. Spin, Spin, Spin...
Are the servers patched and physically secure? Or are they mismanaged? I'm curious how they do it in 8 minutes if the box is fully patched and in a secure location. Social engineering doesn't count as that can apply to all systems.
" Are the servers patched and physically secure? Or are they mismanaged? I'm curious how they do it in 8 minutes if the box is fully patched and in a secure location. Social engineering doesn't count as that can apply to all systems."
I have never seen a corporate environment where this is true of every system, especially since much software just won't run with certain patches installed. All it takes is one member of a domain to fall to give a toehold which can be used to extend access and gain priviliges. Because of how Windows domains and AD work, the attackers job is made easier.
In many cases "patches" have little to do with it - an inadvertent unprotected fileshare, a default login, an exploitable non-MS application, and the chips start to fall.
Here's some hints... Windows servers cache the credentials of any domain account that logs in... With local system, you can dump it from the registry. Guess what user context much Windows stuff runs as? SQL server for example? Ever hear of xp_cmdshell? Stored procedure that lets you run DOS commands through SQL commands... Also, MSDE is often installed inadvertently with things like Visual Studio or many other apps. It comes with default easily guessable SA logins. Get onto a box, load up something like pwdump3, dump the SAM from the registry, crack, take advantage of trust relationships, access other resources, eventually increase priviliges to domain admin.
Not all, just a good chunk for the initial, and being there at the right time.
MS came out with its first version of Windows in 1985.
If you want to call that competition, go right ahead. It was only a sad attempt to copy Apple. Really sad. I tried it. DOS was better. Come to think of it, DOS was better than Windows 286 too.
And you think that that decision was luck?
What was luck was IBM not demanding an exclusive license, as what IBM wanted back then, IBM got.
It's only a matter of time before it brings that capability down to the desktop.
Then why not do it for Vista?
I know that's bad news to you, given how much you've staked on OS X.
You might be surprised to know that the OS I use the majority of the time is W2K3.
I wish Apple well in its competition against Linux. I truly do. But that's all that it's competing against on the desktop.
Since almost nobody is using Linux on the desktop, the recent surge in Apple desktop sales had to be going against something -- Windows.
look clinton, if you want to embrace the numbers in the study but ignore what they really mean youre just as hopeless as b2k..
I assume your report tells them that weak passwords leave your systems vulnerable. And that includes all systems not just windows.
look noob, if you want to ignore the obvious and use twisted logic you're just as hopeless most the ABM crowd.
What twisted logic? what exactly about the content of the article was twisted. B2K's rantings were to quotes from his own article...
Users are always the weak point.
There's also buffer overflows, sql injections, and input validation errors which can get you to run code on a box.
Not to mention all varieties of trust relationships.
Windows has so many entry points and techniques for information leakage, it's hard for even a good policy to lock them all down. A lot of it goes to the legacy of Netbios... backward compat is good, but it also means you're stuck with many NETBEUI heritages.
It is if the security used to store the password hashes isn't enough. I can use Rainbow Crack and get all the passwords on my W2K3 system in a matter of minutes with a success rate of 99.9%, and we have long, hard password requirements here.
But I never here you say we shouldn't count all the windows flaws.
Interesting, so Rainbow Crack is able to defeat strong password of a windows hash? Not the cheap lanman hash, but the windows2000 hash? If I get time later today is it okay if I freepmail you a windows 2000 hash to see how easy it is to crack. Then I'll email you the password so you can see that it wasn't some super crazy password with like alt key codes in it?
Also I believe you can turn off caching of your hash. If it's that easy to crack, I suggest you turn of caching.
Really? So on a fully patched box you can execute these types of attacks. Impressive indeed. So Impressive, I don't believe it. Explain to me one buffer overlow you can exploit on a fully patched box? If you can't my bet is GE was right about you.
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