Firefox Continues To Chip Away At IE's Share

TechWeb News ^ | Feb. 28, 2005 | Gregg Keizer

[West Coast Conservative]

Mozilla's Firefox keeps chipping away at Microsoft's massive lead in browser usage, two Web metrics firms reported Monday.

San Diego, Calif.-based WebSideStory, which last released usage numbers in January, said that in the last five weeks, Firefox has gained an additional 0.74 percent to account for 5.7 percent of all browsers used in the U.S. Microsoft's Internet Explorer, meanwhile, now stands at 89.9 percent, a drop from January's 90.3 percent, and the first time WebSideStory pegged IE as falling under the 90-percent mark.

"That 7/10s of a point compares well with previous increases," said Geoff Johnston, an analyst for WebSideStory. "From June to November [2004], Firefox saw a pretty steady half-a-percent-point increase each month."

While there are indications that Firefox's growth rate is slowing -- the latest numbers show a growth of about 15 percent over the previous period, while that period had grown by 22 percent over the one before that -- Johnston saw it differently. "I don't see [the growth] stopping or flattening," he said.

"The buzz around Firefox keeps growing, and it's buzz that drives people to change," Johnston added. "Mozilla's marketing has been very guerrilla. You're not seeing it spend millions of dollars on TV. Instead, it's a powerful ground swell."

"Firefox keeps plugging away with new features," said Johnston, of Firefox. "That's what got them where they are today. Microsoft's lack of development on IE left open a window of opportunity, and Firefox took advantage of it. Microsoft didn't think that window was there, but with the announcement that it's working on IE 7.0, they've realized that they had left the window open."

[edchambers]

One other thing, MS never improved DOS until DR DOS became available,

One of my pet peeves as well, MSDOS was probably the most reliable,efficiant and stable thing Microsoft ever created and they killed it.Is DR DOS or PC DOS still around?

[HolgerDansk]

Sounds like you were phished or something. Since firefox keeps its bookmarks as an XML file, it should be a simple matter of finding the file (bookmarks.html) and then either putting it back in the right place, or backing up by copying.

[GunRunner]

Yep, it took the 2nd instance of having to do a system restore that I finally gave in and gave up IE. IE is nothing but a spyware and malware magnet.

[LiveBait]

FireFox offers more benefits to Windows users than it does for Mac users, since Mac has a perfectly suitable browser in Safari.

[HolgerDansk]

No one else in the house can stand to wait the extra 10-30 seconds Firefox takes to load compared to IE.

This was fixed about eight months ago. Firefox now loads in about five seconds or so.

[null and void]

Firefox doesn't run on a Mac. I use Firefox at work on my Dell, and Camino at home on my beloved iMac.

I'm delighted with both.

[John Lenin]

Opera is even better.

[null and void]

WHAT?!?!

[null and void]

Ummmm, I do drive a volvo...

[thefactor]

I finally got cable modem in my apartment today. I had planned on downloading Firefox, but to my surprise, the cable guy who came and hooked me up downloaded it without prompting from me and set me all up. After 1 day on it, I love it and will use it. And I was a diehard IE fan.

[Petronski]

Nothing on the web is free if you have to plunk down $500 for a PC and 15+/month to connect (or spend the time and trouble to go to a public access point like a library).

LOL. Anyone who wants a browser already has both of those things, and anyone who doesn't have those things has no use for a browser.

MSIE is a gigantic sewer pipe connected directly to the hard drive.

[Hank Rearden]

I never understood why people moved away from Netscape.

IE blows, so I've avoided it. But I dumped Netscape 7 for Firefox .9x for a simple reason: bloat.

I got sick of every Netscape release being a gigantic melange of Composer and lots of other crap I didn't want, all wrapped up in a 25Mb download. I just wanted a browser, and that was no longer possible with Netscape.

Plus, as somebody else said, once AOHell took over Netscape, I was itching to punch that big red Eject button. Once Firefox became stable, I punched it with relish. Mustard, too.

Very, very happy with Firefox plus Adblock; can't believe IE still has 10%, much less 90%. Firefox can fix that, too.

[Hank Rearden]

I work for an arm of the DoD in IT, and you can just imagine my reaction when, last week, a mandate came down from "on high," informing us that all non-I.E. browers were to be uninstalled at once.

I'm awfully glad I don't have government bozos for bosses (see my tagline for a hint why). In fact, I'm glad I don't have a boss at all, except my own motivation.

[CARDINALRULES]

I use both IE and Firefox. I use IE for FR, Pogo and a few other select sites. I have both Yahoo and Google toolbars loaded. Right now the Yahoo is the default popup blocker and Google is just for the search.

I use FF for Slingo, Pogo (2nd and 3rd account), doing my e-mails and PTR.

I couldn't get Macromedia to work in IE other than the Flash, but it works great in FF.

[Bogey78O]

The spoofing flaw affects ALL browsers. The standard was flawed. Any browser that had code written to standard was compromised. IE wasn't compromised by default but if the person installed the component it would be.

[Bogey78O]

Either that or they were already compromised.

[backhoe]

 

Things you need--(all FREE)
Anti-Virus
AVG Anti-Virus version 7 (free) release available...

 Avast
Firewall
Kerio(Direct Download) Zone Alarm

 If are using zone alarm it may slow your PC. Try Outpost Firewall http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost or Sygate Firewall http://www.sygate.com/ both have FREE and Pro versions and are heads above ZA.
Misc.
IE Spyads SpywareBlaster Spyware Guard
Windows Update- you must keep updated, it is the start of a secure system-
get all CRITICAL Updates

Things you want(Still Free)
 

  I use Firefox PR1 and IMHO, beats the sox off MS Explorer. Life is good with tabs. Click the link and give it a try.

Ad-Aware
Spybot S&D

SpywareBlaster
MS MVP Hosts file

Mike Lin's Homepage and get the Startup Control Panel and Startup Monitor tools.

 

The best forum for malware removal:

-SWI Forums-

 

 
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1315720/posts

 Microsoft Releases Anti-Spyware Beta 1 To Public Today.
Microsoft.com ^

 

=================================================

 

 

Browser Wars, take two various FR links | 12-22-04 | The Heavy Equipment Guy http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1306815/posts ...and let your compiler of links drop out of Lurk & Link mode for comment and advice: Ditch IE. Honest to God, almost anything else will give you fewer problems. Try and compare- use IE, then run Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy... then try another browser and repeat. You will be stunned at the garbage IE attracts. Keep your OS updated & patched. Run a hardware firewall-- with today's LAN's, it's easy. You need a hardware firewall. Use a software firewall, too-- if you don't, you'll never know how many times your PC is trying to "phone home" and send your info across the web.

[John Lenin]

The new Microsoft Spyware Remover removes all versions of MS internet explorer ...

[this_ol_patriot]

...the extra 10-30 seconds Firefox takes to load compared to IE.

I run both and see no discernable difference in loading times. How fast is FF, I load 4 tabs as my home page, Google, FreeRepublic, Broadband Reports and The Weather Channel and they just pop-up, no delay, on a 5Mbps cable connection. Today because of the storm The Weather Channel was slow but that was everywhere.

My son did have problems with FF loading and we traced it to his Panda antivirus , some pages would only load halfway or not at all and some were sluggish, enabling pipelining with the Tweak Network Settings extension helped some but the true solution proved to be changing AV's.

[backhoe]

The new Microsoft Spyware Remover removes all versions of MS internet explorer ...

Yes, I've read those satirical reports around here.

Although I use Win 2K pro on this machine, I am inclined to agree with those who maintain that "Windows is a virus..."