Posted on 11/04/2005 9:23:47 AM PST by kiriath_jearim
Friday, 4 November 2005, 10:04 GMT
Firefox fanbase reaches new high
More than 10% of net users are going online with the Firefox browser, show figures from analysis firm One Stat.
The global average of 11.5% is the highest percentage of users that the open source browser has ever reached.
The research also reveals that Americans are the biggest fans of Firefox with 14.1% using it. In the UK 4.9% use it to get around online.
Despite the success, Microsoft's Internet Explorer still dominates the net with an 85.5% market share.
Browser battle
The figures, gathered from a sample of more than two million web users, show that Firefox's market share has grown by almost three percentage points since April 2005.
UK BROWSER SHARES 1) Microsoft Internet Explorer - 93.37% 2) Mozilla Firefox - 4.94 % 3) Apple Safari - 0.99 % 4) Opera - 0.39 % 5) Netscape - 0.23 %
One Stat said that some of this growth has come at the expense of Microsoft's browser, but it has also stolen users from other browsers such as Opera and Netscape. One Stat also reported that users of Apple's Safari browser for the Mac was also recording good growth figures.
It is thought that continuing news stories about security problems in Internet Explorer are helping to fuel the move away from Microsoft's program.
One Stat's figures are at the upper end of all estimates for the success of Firefox. By contrast analysis firm Net Applications gave the browser a 9% market share according to figures gathered in October.
In recent months, browsers, toolbars and the technology around them have become the new front line in the war between the web's biggest companies - Microsoft, Google and Yahoo - to grab and keep hold of users.
New browsers are also continuing to appear. Most recently a browser called Flock launched that tries to make it easier for users to manage what they do on the web, such as remember places of interest and store pictures, in one place.
Love it.
"reaches new high"
The FireFox base are pot smokers?
ok so... millions of people are using firefox (for free)
what is the big deal? are these independantly wealthy prople progaming firefox just for fun? no money is changing hands...??
I just dont get how this is important
Same thing for IE, Opera, Konqueror, Lynx,....
What's your point?
It now has 14 or 15 times as many users as Apple Safari?
Anything that causes a reduction in the number of "IE-only" sites is a good thing. (Some sites are IE-only in that they use a function that is custom to the IE browser rather than something more widely supported.)
The Fox Rox.
FYI
We are on the cusp of actual competition in the consumber browser market for the first time in more than 5 years, thats pretty imporant..
Use the Mozilla suite. It has a mail server. I have been using it for three years now.
I see your point, and understand competition is good, but what are the econimic driving forces?
Is Firefox being developed for free? Who is paying the bills for their web site, graphics.. etc..
If it is all donated time by deeply concerned geeks then more power to them...
But lets say Firefox took over completely... then what?
Where is the law of supply and demand goign to make this mean something?
I can only think of giving away free software in terms of destroying a marketplace.
For example, all the free food we send to 'starving' countries puts more farmers out of business... then makes the famine worse.
Firefox may drive everyone else out of the market 9because it is given away free) but then who has any financial incentive to invest time and money into innovation from that point on?
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