Firefox 3.5 wins top dog browser crown - sort of

The Register (UK) ^ | December 22, 2009 | Kelly Fiveash

[CedarDave]

Firefox 3.5 trundled passed Internet Explorer 7 in the past few days to become, temporarily at least, the world's most popular web browser.

According to analysis outfit StatCounter, Mozilla's latest browser just slipped ahead of Microsoft's surfing tool in the week commencing 7 December by grabbing 21.93 per cent of the global market.

But it's of course worth noting that while Firefox might be top dog by version number, it's important to point out that Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 is also pulling in plenty of punters.

So when all the stats are combined Microsoft's browser remains the clear winner with a 55.44 per cent share, of which IE 8 holds 20.33 per cent of the market and IE 7 controls 21.2 per cent.

Redmond's unloved IE 6, meanwhile, retains 13.89 per cent of the market, at the last count.

[Mr Fuji]

I’m sure some of the IE6 users are wanting to use the older version for a specific reason. I would bet that the majority of those still using IE6 are the less tech savvy users who aren’t even aware that there are different/newer versions of software available and are using whatever came on their computer at the time.

[dubie]

I have two home premiums @ home and one pro @ work. I am the IT admin here @ work. I can’t really say either way what is causing the crashes. Couple times a day... Strange. I just keep plugging away. No worries.

[papasmurf]

“IE6?? 13.89%...”

Those are Windows 2K people, and people using another browser for everything else, but needing IE for some special purposes.

[Skenderbej]

I had the same problem. I liked IE7 very much, but then the security scare came, so I switched to Firefox. Firefox was very slow to load, but I dealt with it. When IE8 came out, it loaded as slow as Firefox, so now I am indifferent toward the browsers, although I did remove Firefox from my desktop because it seemed to have more problems than IE8 on that computer.

[GeronL]

Your both probably partly right

[rarestia]

Our entire IT department’s browser standard is IE6. Our intranet was developed using old tech, and it doesn’t work correctly in anything other than IE6. So what do they do? They keep an unstable garbage browser in production instead of requiring that internal sites be upgraded.

[GeronL]

lol.
Low-tech nerds?

[rarestia]

No, widespread management refusal to hire competent web programmers and consider Microsoft consultants adequate.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

I’m just glad Chrome finally came out in Linux, my experience has been that Firefox is a dog on Linux.

Depends on how many extensions you carry. i carry a lot, and Firefox is a dog on my system (OpenSuSE 11.1, KDE 4.1).

For a lot of stuff i use Opera 10.1.

[JerseyHighlander]

There is no reason to use FF2 instead of FF3 based on addons.

Try MR Tech Tollkit at https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/421/

Install it, in the options and also in the addons window, it can force updates on 95% of addons that have not been updated.

[zeugma]

Our entire IT department’s browser standard is IE6. Our intranet was developed using old tech, and it doesn’t work correctly in anything other than IE6. So what do they do? They keep an unstable garbage browser in production instead of requiring that internal sites be upgraded.

 The company I work for is the same way. It's what you get when you develop for specific browsers instead of open standards. You get garbage and vendor lock-in. IE sucks. Every time I have to use it for something it is like stepping back into the dark ages. WTF? No tabs???? How the heck can anyone live without tabs?