FF over half

Since when is ~47% over half?

Spanked as a child by MS?

You seem to have an awful lot of hate for MS which clouds your judgement.

Taking a look at browser statistics (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp) it clearly shows that IE is still the dominant browser (although firefox is gaining ground).

Firefox also has numerous security issues and bloat but for some reason you convieniently ignore them so you can bash MS some more.

I'm not a huge fan of MS, it's your sloppy journalism that's prompted me to post this comment.

Browsers

Love the 'nutscrape' browser :-)

Interesting browser stats

You're probably referring to the IE7 update which was released today and had been bugging the users earlier, too. Well, in both cases you can just deselect the update and then say that you don't want to be notified about it anymore. Of course I assume people don't accept all the updates blindly and automatically.

About your browser stats, I never thought the stories here would get THIS low. Are you honestly suggesting that Inq browser stats reflect the true market share? Sure anyone even with a little technical mind uses another browser than IE, but I think the truth is that IE still enjoys a nice lead in the market share and this nagging won't help to bring it down.

There's something you should note...

Something you should really take note of...Pirates use better browsers anyway. This is just an ample move from Microsoft to get more people to adopt their lousy browser.

IE7

Appears it is getting close to the time to find out if the argument of the biggest target being targeted is really true or MS is just an insecurity nightmare

Skewed?

Your stats are a little biased. "Nerds" tend to use Firefox over IE just because they're in the know. Your site caters to said group so the data is skewed, you can't extrapolate it to the masses.

Is Firefox gaining ground? Yes. Is it top dog yet? No

M$'s dirty tactics

please hide my email address to keep certain organizations from spamming and harassing me.... thank you:-)

For the life of me, I can NOT figure out why people still put up with all the BS from M$. The only reason M$ is able to get away with what they do today, is because they either had no competitors for the last 20 years, or strong armed/bought out the viable competition.

Very seldom do you see the public PAY to be told what they can and cannot do (with something they purchased) in their own home. Well, there IS the issue with the RIAA and the MPAA, but thats another story.

Not only does M$ tell you what you can and cant do with something you've paid for, they spy on you. No need to say "without your consent" here, because the term "spying" already denotes that. Once it was first found that M$ had slipped in updates without the users knowledge or did so in a way to hide an update, they should have had federal charges brought against them. The same should have happened in the Mediadefuncter case.

You have two of the biggest commercial bodies in the world, crying about people doing illegal activities with their product that takes money out of their pocket. That such activities are all illegal, and the people doing such need charges brought against them and restitution be made.

BUT, THEY can stoop to illegal and immoral actions against even their LEGITIMATE and INNOCENT customers without fear of prosecution? That tells you right there that justice is blind to the almighty $.

If these people want to slow piracy, how about putting out a product thats WORTH paying for to begin with, and then, how about charging a decent price for it? NOT 10 prices so your millionaire board can buy new condos this year.

The facts are plain, these prganizations/businesses care NOTHING about their users/fans/customers. They ONLY care about making money.

One easy answer is for everyone to go one year with OUT purchasing a single M$ product, without purchasing a single muzic cd or moovee dvd. You want to put the hurts on a company, do it where it hurts them..... in the bank account. The problem is, the same people who sit around and bitch about having to pay $500 for M$ Orafice Pro, or the latest muzic cd from the fav band (which only had 2 good songs on it) are the same people who cant stay away from purchasing these things because they feel they have to have the latest and greatest of everything........ which is fine. But keep your mouth shut as I dont want to hear you whine about how much you paid for something you did NOT have to purchase!

I have been a tech for 15 years. Sadly, only recently I have started branching out to Linux. I am tired of M$ and their bullshit strong arm tactics. I still run XP-Pro (legitimately I might add) because I do think it is a decent OS. i recently did a repair, as after 3 years, my system had become muddled with junk. I chose NOT to update my system after the repair (repair returning my system to a fresh SP2 install). A couple months later, I repaired an identical system I had, but chose to update it to see if there was a difference. the fully updated system was more sluggish in every aspect. yet another reason NOT to update. Plain and simple, NO updates are going to keep predators out if you dont have a good firewall. If you have a good one, they have to get through it first to expose anything else on you system.

long story short...... I still run 3 AthlonXP 2800 systems with 1.5GB RAM and 128MB 8X GeForce4 AGP video cards on XP Pro. These systems do EVERYTHING I need them to. I will NOT give into pressure by M$ or any other bloodsucking company/business to spend money on products I dont need. Nor will I buy a product (Vizta/MEII) that forces me to build an entirely new system.

The power is in your hands people, use it. STOP BUYING this crap! Go for ONE YEAR without purchasing anything like that. Take the money you saved and put it in your kids college fund. Youll find out, its easier to do than you think :-)

*B*

Ferrets

Thinking of shifting to Opera. Firefox has been randomly crashing often lately for some bizzare reason on several different platforms.

A shame since it is great when it doesn't crash.

Thank you Charlie! ;)

Hi Charlie!

I've read it and there is nothing more to say as THANK YOU for your clear words! ;)

Frank

My Browser:
Firefox 2.0.0.7 with good Add-ons like Master Password Timeout, Password Exporter, Secure Login, SAGE, Mouse Gestures.... Theme: NOIA .... , SUN Java .... and so on!

Re:Spanked as a child by MS?

I love former Mozilla, but Firefox is just perfect.

Right now I even do not know that one of my friends do not use FF (most of them with basic computer knowledge and skills)

Anyway, best wishes for IE, competition is good thing :)

Mike from Chicago

FF

Internet Explorer user must thank you to the Firefox. Without Firefox then there will be no Internet Explorer 7.
I love Internet Explorer so I must love Firefox (for above reason :P).
I am using Maxthon with the latest Internet Explorer engine :P.
hahahhahhaaa

Two the first two comments

To Anon: 47.7 (FF) + 4.27 (Moz) = 52.04 > 50

Teppic: "If you look at the numbers, taken from the Inq stats engine over the last month or so, with a sample size of 11 million plus geeks, MS is losing, badly. The numbers plainly show that MS now has less than half the browser share, not coincidently because Mozilla is over half."

All proper disclosures are there. This is TheInq's data, which is said above, and it shows that MS has half the browser share of Inq readers. Not the world, nowhere in the article does it say "FF has half the world."

This post was for your abysmal reading comprehension followed by knee-jerk reaction posting.

The Gospel According to Firefox

I've been with Firefox for 3 yrs now - and have converted many other users during this time. I have not had a single person ever regret their conversion.

Its easier to navigate, renders better and really makes a difference to the security of your PC. Here in South Africa, viruses/malware are a serious problem because most users can't afford descent AntiVirus pacakges.

IE7 was promising, but offers no features that aren't already available in a alternative (free) browser.

Since I have also been Microsoft free for 2 months, I don't really care about IE anyway.

Mozilla account for over half

yes firefox is 47% but add mozillas other browser which comes in at just over 4% and you get over half.

Geek Site

As you said...this is a geek site.
So it's probably worth mentioning that this will be skewed towards the open-sauce/typically-lower-usage crowd.

I'd be more interested on Reuters/CNN/Fox's stats.

My 0.02 €

Anon, nobody said anything about FF being over half... Charlie actually said Mozilla is over half. And I think that since Mozilla (4.27) is Mozilla and Firefox (47.77) is well... Mozilla too, that does make up more than half (52.04).

On the other hand someone only can call Charlie, who bashes WGA, a MS basher with no arguments if that someone is a masochist or MS employee or... both :D.

Journalist or Statistician?

"The numbers plainly show that MS now has less than half the browser share......"

Hi Charlie. I love your prose, your bias & your humour. But, whilst I ain't a statistician (but I am a sceptic), we all must remember the saying about Lies, Damned Lies & Statistics.

Your sentence would have been more accurate if it had ended ".......of those visiting the Inq."
The site is, after all, aimed at those surfers with that little bit of extra savvy.

Glad to see my patronage of Opera shows up.

Ron H

re: FF over half

He didn't say that Firefox is over half, he said that Mozilla is over half. My that he means that Mozilla Firefox (47.77%) and the Mozilla suite (4.27%) combined are over half (52.04%)

Bad Ass Browser

Bad Ass browser: thats awesome hilarious.


Yah boo sucks to IE and those first couple posters who got all up in arms, in defense of IE. Oh noes!

W3Schools Data

Teppic: I graphed the w3schools.com data here:
http://members.shaw.ca/Limulus/files/w3sbw2-0706.png

Note how IE5->6 was rapid and looks like an X on the graph. Note how the IE6->7 transition has stalled and IE7 usage has plateaued at a level BELOW IE6. Note how Firefox continues to grow against IE as a whole, unphased by IE7's release.

Microsoft should be scared.

its about fashion

welll if its about a better browser, im sorry but opera is just hard to ignore, firefox is just too big for its own good. It always surges to 100 percent cpu and crashes hard. If i could get opera to open a new tab when you select something then google seach I would never look back. Maybe you should include a list of operating systems so we get the whole picture, im guessing you get quite a bit of *nix hits.

I personally thank Microsoft for IE

Few people seem to remember how much it sucked to use the products of the "competitors" that Microsoft evicted from the market place. Do any of us lament the loss of Netscape 4.x or 6.x? How about Real Media Player? Have we forgotten that our beloved Firefox would not even exist if Netscape were pandering its garbage on the net anymore? How many have forgotten just how awful it was to use Real Player (in my mind the first malware of Windows)?

Personally, I thank Microsoft for erradicating the plague of inferior products such as Netscape Navigator and Real Media Player. If that means using IE or WMP, so be it. I'm not even forced to use something like Real's player or Quicktime to play their video formats. I can play it on a direct media layer player like Media Player Classic. Yeah, that's right, Microsoft technology helps me not be forced to use a player for a video format.

They need to give it away

Had my first live contact with IE7 a week ago. Wow, what a PoS! Its main features were speed (lack of), unfriendly "dumbed down" user interface and a tendency to crash regularly. I got fed up with it and installed Firefox (it actually refused to download Firefox, I had to load yet another browser first).

So the guess is that they'll continue to give the thing away for the time being to try to prevent their user base from defecting while they fix the thing.

47.77%+ 4.27% = 52.04%

to Anon post #1
47.77%+ 4.27% = 52.04%
please refer to his original quote in the article
"not coincidently because Mozilla is over half."
Firefox is not the only browser of the Mozilla, I hope you know that ;)

Firefox? maybe next time...

Personally, i wouldn't let firebox anywhere near my systems at the moment.
The grass is not always greener. Ever seen a quad xeon box with 4Gb of ram pants out due to insufficient system resources? I have. Memory leaks, bugs, and security problems? oh look, you've installed firefox. Heh, you neglected to mention those little featurettes in your little rant about how your in with the "in" crowd.
This sounds like the same reason lots of people here have installed Firefox. Seems to be a, "because all the cool kids run firefox", kind of mentality behind it. not because its any better or worse.
From the zealous nature of this article, i suspected i was going to get a "macs rule, PC's drool" type of intellectual reasoning behind it. Maybe some column inches in The SUN newspaper would be a better recipient of your journalistic skill?

While Microsoft haven't really got much merrit to their operation, this kind of writing doesn't do your standing much good either.

FF over half

FF over half
Since when is ~47% over half?
posted by : Anon, 05 October 2007

He said Mozilla, if we take that to mean the Mozilla foundation ->
FF + Mozilla Suite > 50%

More if one adds all the Gecko-based browsers rather than just FF & Mozilla

Over half is the correct assumption.

~47 isnt over half, ~52 is.
He said Mozilla is over half, not FF.
FF is Mozilla, and Mozilla is, well Mozilla. To get the lowdown, head over to mozilla.org.

Why would one want IE anyway?

Come get real, IE is junk, why would one want it anyway.
I have been using FF for years, and it only gets better and beter.

Mozilla over half

To get the "over half" figure add FF and Mozilla stats together, since they are both Mozilla projects.

It should be noted that although these stats are promising for Firefox they are not representative of the wider user base. This sites visitors are only a small subset of the webs population. Tech geeks are alot more likely to be using open source alternatives, whereas most people are likely to use whatever the hell comes bundled (or gets pushed as an update lol).

The easiest way to win this war is to not just use firefox, but try and get non-techy friends to use it as well. If we can keep the pressure up maybe more of these stupid anti-piracy limitations will be dropped.

Microjunk

Adding to some other comments I think it is important to note that most people have no clue about operating systems. They do not realize XP is an 'operating system', they do not really know IE is a 'browser'.
Where do they get this stuff you might wonder...
Their own lack of knowledge is the problem.
Dell do not care what OS to bundle with a new machine, they really don't. Neither does H.P. or compaq or any major OEM and or system integrator.
As a business that serves customers they care about making bucket loads of money and keeping the customers happy when they dish out those amounts.
IF the customers would say "Hey man, why are you bundling this crap with my new PC?" they would react.
Unfortuantely the user base is such that they are almost pre-conditioned to use MS products. Firefox could be a zillion times better than anything else, but if no one knows about it, whats the point?

Microsoft know that the user wants his or her machine to work as simply as a toaster. You switch on, it turns on, switch off and its off. Simple! No bizillion settings, no extra tweaks, no tech speak not even acronyms.
It's a mentality of pressing 'Next' many times. We don't read the license agreements, who the hell does that??
If windows can update itself automatically & not bother us in any way more than requiring us to click "OK" we get annoyed anyways.

Closing the loop, people in the know tend to dislike microsoft's products for various reasons. It is to be expected that a technically oriented site would have higher precentages for other browsers, especially when the other browser is arguably just as good or better.

Is it going to last? will the tides of darkness finally be turned?
Definitely not!
Why?
The users, they still don't know, they do not want to know.

A smart person making an uninformed decision is as stupid as anyone else.
To me, Microsoft is the personification of a company that capitilizes, and as a result encourages, that course of action.


P.S.

Do you think they might go as low as to include Vista as a 'critical update' I mean, how else would it spread? its not airborn yet.

What gives?

Only this week I was reading a story about how Microsoft was "starting" to be worried by Firefox because it had a 16% market share in US and slightly less elsewhere.

I was pretty sceptical. Everyone I know (Admittedly, I'm geekish and so are my friends) uses Firefox, and it's been 3 years for me since I used anything else.

Now your stats tell a totally different story. I wonder how much MS paid the other guys ... for those who think that's paranoid, don't be naive. Remember the recent OXML scandal...

Stats?

Blimey on one site i admin IE has 93.2% with Firefoox scraping only 4.8%. It must be something to do with the Inq being a tech site that you see such a swing cos i can promise you it ain't like that elsewhere.

Yarr teh pirates are coming!

Where as most people are bound to assume that pirates may/may not use IE, there are very simple was of getting around the WGA. If you look hard enough, you'll find many different ways to get around the infecton.
Also, you may be interested in knowing that IE 7 is not showing up as any sort of update. I still have 6 for Voleware updates and I didn't see it there. I did make sure to check whether or not I hid the update, but I haven't. It would seem that Vole's position on IE7 is in question. If it isn't a critical update and it's not in the optional software category, where is it?

Funny

I just love all Charlie´s articles, well, at least 95% of them. :-)
It´s even more funny to see the reaction of MS lovers... Most of it MS staff or people who went through those M$ certification programs or whatsoever and are defending their sugar mommy.
Peolpe who actually think that MS software is the best thing since sliced bread probably don´t even know The Inq website.
What other reason would they have to go through the trouble to read an article that they knew that would be a "lie" and still spend their time flamming it. What are they doing reading this heretic site in the first place?
I also believe that the inq stats don´t reflect the browser usage worldwide. But it surely reflects a trend, with Firefox continuously gaining ground, that undeniable, as it once had 95% of the browser market and today it´s most likely with 70% or less.
Firefox doesn´t really need to overthrow IE. Just gather enough users to force websites to dump IE-specific codes (such as ActiveX) that make sites unreadable or crippled under browsers other than IE. That is what MS don´t want. They don´t want us to be able to choose the browser we would like to use.
Firefox surely isn´t flawless but considering the alternative (including the possiblily of being enslaved by it), I really think that Firefox is more than acceptable.

Why so anti-MS?

On the main subject of the article, I have never had a single problem with WGA in 4 years of having Windows XP, and over 6 reinstalls. It takes 1 or two minutes extra to install a simple ActiveX control to get WMP11 etc, but that's all.

'...IE7 and the latest DRM-infected media player ad platform'

I take it that by 'media player ad platform' the writer is referring to WMP11. Here the article is totally wrong. WHAT COMPULSORY/INTRUSIVE DRM DO I SEE IN WMP11? NONE. WHAT ADS DO I SEE? NONE. There's a simple dialog asking to rip files and put DRM on them, all you have to do is click 'no' and 'don't ask me again'. Urge has DRM, but that's just like iTunes or any other online store. I use WMP11 for speed (3-second launch straight into media library and search-as-u-type ftw), ease of use, and a beautiful interface (I've used iTunes, Winamp, VLC, MusicMatch Jukebox, aswell as the old versions of WMP; WMP11 is faster and more user-friendly than them all). Why does everyone hate it so much? I don't really see why.

Onto IE7, again why exactly is it so bad? I used it for a year (I haven't gotten around to installing it since my last reinstall of Windows), and it was fairly fast and actually had useful features. Surprise! Inbuilt RSS! Obviously no one working on Firefox could come up with such a simple idea; with Firefox people have to get it through an addon. IE7 isn't slow or loaded either. The interface isn't the best, but WHAT IS EXACTLY WRONG WITH IE7?

I don't see how the above products could be though of as so evil, when even worse apps are coming out from other vendors. I haven't had any problems with these apps, or WGA. No clogging of resources, no random closings, no malware.

All of you will probably try to say that I work for Microsoft, but honestly I'm 14, I'm a high school student, just that I see things for what they are. I'm not a complete Microsoft fan. I too lament the fact that every update of XPSP2 makes one's PC slower, and that installing Windows Live Messenger is worse than installing malware (in terms of degrading performance), but in my opinion people just bash Microsoft products without any reason. How about bashing Adobe or Apple for once? I don't think I need to go into detail on their products.

-Rayy

New Lows

I have to admit I'm getting tired of this sites vain and biased approach to things, all this ontop of it's generaly pathetic grammar and spelling. My own is awefull and even I don't make nearly as many mistakes nor am I as lazy despite not being a "journalist".

Fx market share

To all the people saying these statistics don't represent the "real" market share: who the hell cares?! It's not like Mozilla gets money for Firefox, so the "actual" market share doesn't mean squat in that sense. Furthermore, it's the geeks that drive this market. It's geeks that tell Joe Schmoe to use Firefox. It's geeks that tell their boss Firefox is more secure than IE and supports standards better. It's geeks that help develop Firefox further and report problems with the software to Bugzilla. And most importantly: it's geeks that follow the standards used by browsers for web design.

Average users mean nothing in this market. They just use what they get fed and that's that.

WGA = pure evil.

I really think all of this DRM, WGA, and copy protection only hurt legitimate users.

Constantly they use the wrong tactic to make us loyal customers. Their dishonesty and deceit are only equal to their stupidity. I am a critic of Microsoft because they do it wrong. Buggy, glitchy and swiss cheese size holes in their security.

WGA is the wrong direction. Microsoft's monopoly is rapidly slipping. Linux is coming and with time, hopefully the linux nerds will realize how important it is to make standard versions that basic users can use.

I spit on microsoft because of their clear stupidity. May they die a horrible death.

@Anon

Firefox 47.77% + Mozilla 4.27% = 52.04% overall market share

Nerds are The Market

The reason it matters that the nerds prefer Firefox over IE, is because it's the nerds that make the applications that everyone else will be using in 5 years time. You can be sure those applications will be easier to use in the nerds prefered browser.

Ultimately, the software end users choose is driven buy the software the nerds choose to use. The nerds are a leading indicator of future market share. This is why Microsoft is obsessed with developers developers developers.

I wouldn't mind betting the real market share of IE amongst developers is under 10%.

@Since when is ~47% over half?

Firefox + Mozilla is 52.04%. More than half ;)

Catering For The Dumb Majority ….. of Blankness

Within a human universe governed by relativities, another word for ignorance-of-the-absolutes because we couldn’t care less other than when calamity strikes us and we suddenly find that the truth hurts, everything is done for the sake of [controlling] the majority. That’s called statistics.

Within statistics, out of a sample of 100 tasked to perform, or to react to, a certain situation, 2-to-5 will always come out trumps with 10-15 calling it “close but we won’t or might do it again”, and the rest struggling to stay afloat or drowned before the task had even started. And commerce, finance, politics, academia, science, religion, gambling, entertainment, and what-have-you will use these statistics to prove their prowess and correctness until someone comes along and disproves it by getting hold of that 2-to-5 “chosen few” to squeeze the truth out of the stone. It might be easier if you are after blood, though. There’s nuthin’ that The Billy Boy Gang do not know for they initiated and are controlling the aganda. It’s a matter of how much you can gouge out of them whilst not forgetting that they are the Masters Of The Gouge.

The absolute is that which has both the potential/truth and the kinetic/power as one whereas the poor relative is he who either has the truth [but cannot handle the power] or the power [but cannot handle the truth], but not both or in the case of the majority fodder, a big fat zero though this majority sure can yakety-yak, taking turns to express their greatness of being nuthin’. As if watching lemmings hurtling over cliffs is an inadequate lesson, we continue to let the 2-to-5’s control and manipulate us through in-fighting by the judicious use of stats [or in the case of those blankness called yanks, “democracy”]. The knowledge & power of going to Mars, vapourising others at the push of a button, cheating others of their value & valuation through commerce, exchange mechanisms and similar “smart” acts of cruelty, pales into insignificance when compared having the realisation of why or what we are born for. How so? Cos’ Billy Boys, every human who is born will have to die for throughput [i.e that which has both the potential and the kinetic] can only happen when death leads to life and the point is not whether we agree or believe. It’s how we can find out [the potential] and become the knowledge [the kinetic]. This is the kind of stuff that the “all-powerful” monkey with access to the doomsday button will never be able to uncover, no matter how many bananas he can con out of others.

1.1x10^7+Gks?

Even a casual analysis of your data suggests that the sample size is at most 100,000 (1x10^5) individual visitors, and more likely ~50k. The site is also as mentioned, a self selection test - what I am surprised by is the number of Infecternet Destroyer users who use this site, although perhaps they are using the crapware they are stuck with while they are supposed to be working... Errm, I used to have Nutscrape on a 98SE box... if you can't fiddle with your user agent data where's the fun?

Biased much?

Let's put it this way:

1. MS only allows legit users to install IE7 and you guys flame MS because all the pirates with insecure IE6 on their machines stand a higher risk of infection and serving as hosts for the propagation of viruses/malware.
2. MS allows pirates to install IE7 and you write about the mighty MS shivering in their boots in the face of Firefox domination and being kind to smelly pirates?

Websites like this only work by constantly spelling doom and making mountains out of molehills, eh? Shock value, FUD and slamming anyone successful - say, whatever happened to reverse hyper-threading that was going to demolish Core 2?

MS forced to grow better?

Very nice. At least the loss of market share will force MS into more friendly customer policy... They don't listen to critics and suggestions. Preferring to punish than to persuade. Maybe they will listen to market losses...