THE MOZILLA FOUNDATION will be celebrating after the web counter outfit Stat Counter revealed that its open source Firefox browser overtook Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the world's most popular browser for the first time.
The figures show that the Vole's Internet Exploder 7 has been on a gradual slide this year as users upgraded to IE version 8. However by a strange statistical quirk, IE8 is still not as popular as Mozzarella's Fireferret 3.5 yet and thus the open sauce furry mammal is for once in its life the world's number one web browser.
We suspect that by February IE8 will have overtaken Firefox, even though Firefox 3.5 use is still increasing. But it is nice to know that at Winter Solstice 2009, Firefox 3.5 managed to become, even if only briefly, the world's most used browser.
Last week Mozilla issued a fifth beta of Firefox 3.6 rather than move on to a release candidate. Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 was released as an update to current testers early Thursday, and can also be installed by others who download it from Mozilla's website.
There are more than 130 fixes from the last beta, which Mozilla released in late November. The release of Firefox 3.6 will not appear until early 2010. µ
Firefox is a better browser than Internet Explorer. Back in the day Internet Explorer ruled, but not any more since every update Microsoft brings out just makes Internet Explorer worse.
Not saying which is better. However, many people in other countries use IE but they use older versions.
Some of the older versions work better with active x and banking/payment software (as in Korea and Japan).
Then in China with all the pirated windows, most everyone is using IE 6 (because they can't get microsoft updates)...thus a lot of the IE users outside of the US are still using older versions.
I would have liked to see all of FF vs. all of IE, not just the latest and somewhat craptastic versions.
You're the joke.
Opera don't charge nothing for their browser now a days.
Time you upgraded from Windows 98 ain't it caveman.
Your the fcuking idiot, everyone and their mother uses FF now a days. Why, because monkey see, monkey do. FF is designed for noobs. Internet, 90 % noobs using FF.
FF is the new IE..
Are you Sir, are a fcukin cun t
Honestly, it's business for people to know. I have clients, I work for companies, and I'm paid for my knowledge. When IE doesn't work properly because of a style sheet after an update, I need to troubleshoot the problem. When designing corporate sites we need to confirm it works on all the browsers. So again, it's business. When you've got tools at your finger tips in one browser and nothing in others, you can pretty much figure-out which one you're going to use because of functionality.
So one - you're wrong, all browsers are not all the same.
And two - you obviously don't deal with this on the business side so your only focus is what's on facebook or whatever. Like I said before, if you are a techie I wouldn't let you touch anything since you don't even care enough to have used browsers enough to have an opinion on anything. They're not all the same.
In the end modern browsers contain few features that set them apart from each other, which is why you don't see many people jumping ship that often.
What are really sad, however, are the people who take "pride" in what browser they use, like it's some significant feature of their lifestyles. It's not the early 2000s anymore people, get over it.
I use portable Opera often enough and it's a good browser, but the problem I have is it can't compare to Firefox with all the addons. In this case, no one can. Firefox is hands down the best browser. If anyone is still using IE they're either locked-down in a corporate environment or they don't know any better. Most people on the Internet are non-technical people so it's understandable.
IE's functionality is a joke when comparing it, and I never feel secure using it. If you are a techie and you're using IE I question your judgment.
Never used it then?
and has for years. The only reason they charged for it (up until v8) was because its worth paying for. Nothing beats the customization options and the complete package offered by Opera. The only thing keeping them back from mass market is the learning curve on how to set everything up and where to find the various settings in the somewhat cryptic menus. Opera doesn't need a swath of 3rd party plugins to build its feature base, noscript and adblock functions are built in. The problem is FF users think that since they've graduated from IE they must be using the best there is.
I only wish corporate would follow suit!
Back home I'm using FF3.5 with addons and have no probs with it.
Chrome uses the internet explorer stack so that put me off! (try it go into ie6 or ie7 tools connections advance and in proxy settings tick use proxy server I have mine set to 127.0.0.1 8080 for security reasons and stops malware to!)
and watch Chrome stop working! FF seems uneffected by this. also when is Chrome going to support wav in its audio tag - its the only browser that doesn't (even ie6 supports wav in its propriatry bgsound tag!)
Chrome is a pile of shit for nooobs even with its shitty addons, and mega crap themes..and piss poor features, options, etc.. its fast, but it does fuck all so whats the point.
ITS FUCKING SHIT.. idiots!
Firefox 3.5/6 +60 extesions, SSD drive/Ramdrive... customizability, options etc etc etc..
only idiots use anything else really.
Firefox however does have plenty of room for improvement in many areas, by improvement I mean, not taking out things like an 'Elements Properties' context menu, and adding SHITE like persona's for fucking NOOBLETS, and thinking abour redesigning the UI for for fucking noobs! Yes Firefox currently is the best web browser with enough extensions to beat Microsuck into hole never to come up again until it can sort its shit out.
If you use addons with Chrome it starts to slow down and you have the same problems you had with Firefox.
App startup times are much faster with SSD. If SSD takes off in 2010 as expected it may become less of an issue for Firefox.
Really bad joke really. They try to squeeze money from where not even M$ dare to...
Firefox is pretty much everything you need, Chrome is not bad either.
From a time where M$ had more than 90% of the browser market, I see a pretty good trend toward firefox and Chrome.
Now that EU stopped IE to be bundled with windows, I see a sharper decline of IE in the next years.
Yes we see this too, Firefox rules.
And for good reason too.
It's better! 1
It's opensauce! 2
It's faster! 3
It's Mozilla! 4
It's not Microsoft! 5
It's time people discover M$ isn't computing, shit opensauce is everywhere but the desktop for most.
Need more?
Now I just wonder how many years those stupid so-called "web developers" (aka script makers) will start to test their little html+sql programs (if that's programming at all) in Firefox or, even better, Opera.
Not that Opera is better as a browser, but if it runs on Opera, runs anywhere.
Oh, right, .NET debugs only on IE...
...Firefox 3.6 appears to fix much of the slowness and leakiness (Javascript-related?) in 3.5.
I have no idea which bug number that would be, or if 3.5 will ever be patched, but a 3.6 build from last week is being significantly less awful than 3.5 over here on Ubuntu.
[The Chrome model seems to be the way to go looking forward, but here in reality I'll stick with the less-creepy 'default.']
Who cares. both internet explorer and firefox are substandard in comparison to opera. A true web connoisseur uses opera whilst a wannabe techie is wowed by firefox.
rgds,
J.J
There is no point to compare browsers version by version.
Just go to the link provided to Stat Counter web site and change the filter below the chart from "Browser Version" to "Broswer" and then you will see comparison between all supported IE versions vs. all supported FireFox versions. (Un)fortunately IE still beats FireFox 2:1...
Appropriate timing lads! I switched today to Chrome (and my household followed suit). Firefox is just too slow.
Chrome beta has Adblock, Flashblock, Xmarks so I have absolutely NO reason to switch back.
Let's hope it stays this way. For years i put up with Microsoft IE crap-ware. Now we have good alternative browsers.
Could he possibly mean are they just comparing Firefox 3.5 to say Infection Exploiter x (you're welcome to fill in the BLANK!)
Or are they actually compering to say Version 8
I can't see why anyone would wish to bother with such tat as Infection Exploiter anyway.
In any case Congrats to the Fireferret(Badger) whatever!
May you enjoy beeing Nr.1 for a long, long time!!!!
mate, did you even take a look at the actual results before rushing out with your comment? they don't compare all version of Firfox with individual versions of IE, they are only talking about Firefox 3.5. In fact, they have a list of all popular browsers, different versions included.
did you even look at the stats G.Man, clearly shows v3.5.
Because they don't. Take a second look, they track 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 branches.
why do they compare all versions of firefox with individual versions of ie (8, 7, 6)?