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 portals unique Hit List service reveals a slump in the Mozilla browsers 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 Microsofts sudden gains were from the unveiling of a new IE, Net Applications said a re-launch tends revive industry interest, and could have bolstered Microsofts 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 Microsofts 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 Firefoxs 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 Microsofts loss, up until now, has been Firefoxs gain, but over the last month roles have reversed.
Security fears concerning Mozilla and its browser product have recently emerged, coinciding with Microsofts high-profile trumpeting of its new safer browser product (IE 7), complete with glossy logo.
Experts at Net Applications said they were surprised at Firefoxs 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 Foundations 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.
Who gives a rat's ass about web servers? They're commodities. What isn't a commodity is the HTML that gets dished up by those servers -- and that's primarily serving IE.
For the nth time, Microsoft created a program that allows ANY government to view certain source code under strict conditions. Yes the ChiComs took entered into that program.
Code added to Open Source via GNU can also be viewed by the ChiComs. Thus we're all Commies.
Typical lie from you. I simply corrected you, multiple times, when you attempted to claim ALL support was being cut off. Lie some more why don't you, I'm sure you will.
"Supervised entirely by MS attornies "
My goodness, you and the tin turkey are laughable. Yes, the chicoms fear bill gate's attorneys. How preposterous. First, open source is evil because the evil chinese communists have access to it (along with the rest of the world). But those same evil chicoms can be trusted because, well, they signed this slip of paper that has the full force of MS attorneys behind it!
"and never actually handing over Windows source code."
LORAL.
LORAL.
LORAL.
LORAL.
LORAL.
LORAL.
LORAL.
LORAL.
LORAL.
LORAL.
Are you incredibly gullible or incredibly dense? Either way it seems to be by your own choice.
99 times out of 100, when FF starts crashing regularly it's due to an extension or theme you have installed. One thing you might try is uninstalling your extensions/themes, and adding them back in one at a time until you find the offender.
"Who gives a rat's ass about web servers? They're commodities"
OMG...you are laughable.
First, web servers are a product that MS actually tries to make money on, unlike IE.
So we should care about IE, which is free, having X market share, but shouldn't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain when it comes to web servers, which MS charges for?
You are a joke.
Give my regards to Lee Harvey Oswald. Apparently, in your mind, the Grassy Knoll shooter is alive and well...
What's significant is you don't even know that Apache runs on Windows, and therefore haven't a clue as to what you are even talking about.
Agreed! I tried to keep it simple for FlashBunny!
I'm no IE fan - you've flamed me before, but in the interest of accuracy, I'll point out a Firefox download doesn't equate to a Firefox adoption. To update to the latest point release, you have to do a new download. You can't just do an update. So if you want to update from 1.0 to the current verision, you do a download and get counted again. Or at least it was that way when I last updated to 1.0.3.
"What's significant is you don't even know that Apache runs on Windows, and therefore haven't a clue as to what you are even talking about."
How dense are you? Apache runs on all sorts of operating systems - not just windows. I enver even mentioned operating systems, genius- I mentioned web servers. That's what netcraft measures. Congratulations on the most meaningless of the night.
Not correct, "Tier 4" countries (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria) are absolutely excluded. You know, basically the same ones that all use their free copies of Linux as their official O/S, all legal and fully endorsed by the GNU fanatics.
Maybe it's because companies are consolidating web servers and Windows can handle it better than Apache.
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