Firefox is losing browser share, this time it’s not to Internet Explorer but to Apple’s Safari. Last January, the share came down to 13.7% from 14%. In 2005, Firefox was losing its share to Internet Explorer but in 2006 they gained their progress back on track by big margin (See e-Week, Information Week, IT News). In 2005, Firefox share was approximately 8%, Safari 2%, Internet Explorer 87% and remaining for Netscape and opera (See PC World, Internet News). Currently Firefox accounts for approximately 14%, Safari 5% and Internet Explorer 80% (See PC World). Safari is gaining a little ground because of the growth in Apple’s Macintosh.
So, who exactly is using Firefox? When I looked at the browser usage for LyteByte, it shows a share of 62% for Firefox but the worldwide usage is less than 13%.
Why there is a big difference? Since this is a site on technology, people who visit this site will be people who follow tech news. These are the people who read blogs and technology sites and hence they are influenced by the programs such as Spread Firefox. Others are the kind of people who are loyal to open source and they use Firefox.
The features of add-ons and themes in Firefox do add the usability and enhance the interface but most of the people still stick to Internet Explorer. Does that mean that people who use Internet explorer are ignorant of Firefox? By no means can one come to this conclusion. Internet Explorer gives all what the nominal online user wants and they are satisfied with that. So they don’t search for another browser and with the introduction of IE7, many people started going back to IE. People who use Firefox are people who just wanted to try something new and they stuck to it. Firefox with too many features is little annoying sometimes. Once I saw a photo of a Firefox browser, half the screen was filled with the add-on’s menu and the content of the page was barely visible.
So, Internet Explorer is for the common people and Firefox is for the uncommon people.
Hmmmm… what you said bout usual users using IE does ring true..cos for normal surfing I do use IE, but when it comes to testing out the webapps (and esp the javascript and UI in them) then Mozilla’s Firefox is my browser of choice…I esp like the really cool Javascript console they have…makes js debugging a whole lot simpler!
Well yes, Firefox is coder’s delight…
Hmm.. That really weird because we usually see market share eaten away by Firefox from IE
Yeah, actually I thought Firefox dominates browser share. But only after reading the statistics, I came to know firefox share is only 14%
@ byte
This is a bit mutable. I don agree that mozilla users stick to mozilla because of usage. I can justify that. Mozilla is always a better browser than the stupid IE.
Only one disadvantage i have seen is the start up time, rest mozilla rocks!!
When it comes to add ons, ie can never stand near mozilla.
I agree firefox can get out of control with too many/or bad combination of plug-in’s installed… but a fresh install of firefox is pretty good. I personally keep a collection of @ a dozen browsers (for testing purposes) and lately I’ve found camino to be my favorite default browser, it’s like firefox (it’s from mozilla as well) with less plug-ins but a the same beautiful graphics rendering that Safari uses… Your point about IE being convienent to the average web user is spot on- IE7 is much better windows browser by default. Microsoft was wise to clean up their browser - if it wasn’t for Firefox - Microsoft could have just left media player… er I mean internet explorer as it was. BTW microsoft hasn’t updated IE for macintosh since 5.5 - thank god for Boot Camp & Paralells … sorry for the long reply - loving your blog, very good topics