New browser wins over net surfers

[DVTimes]

The proportion of surfers using Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) has dropped to below 90%, say web analysts.
Net traffic monitor, OneStat.com, has reported that the open-source browser Firefox 1.0, released on 9 November, seems to be drawing users away from IE.

While IE's market share has dropped 5% since May to 88.9%, Mozilla browsers - including Firefox - have grown by 5%.

Firefox is made by the Mozilla Foundation which was set up by former browser maker Netscape in 1998.

Although there have been other preview versions of Firefox, version 1.0 was the first complete official program.

"It seems that people are switching from Microsoft's Internet Explorer to Mozilla's new Firefox browser," said Niels Brinkman, co-founder of Amsterdam-based OneStat.com.

Strong grip

Mozilla browsers - including Firefox 1.0 - now have 7.4% of the market share, the figures suggest. Mozilla said that more than five million have downloaded the free software since its official release.

Supporters of the open-source software in the US managed to raise $250,000 (£133,000) to advertise the release of Firefox 1.0 in The New York Times, and support the Mozilla Foundation.

There was a flurry of downloads on its first day of release.

The figures echo similar research from net analyst WebSideStory which suggested that IE had 92.9% of users in October compared to 95.5% in June.

Microsoft IE has dominated the browser market for some time after taking the crown from Netscape, and its share of users has always stayed at around the 95% mark.

Firefox is attractive to many because it is open-source. That means people are free to adapt the software's core code to create other innovative features, like add-ons or extensions to the program.

Fewer security holes have also been discovered so far in Firefox than in IE.

Paul Randle, Microsoft Windows Client product manager, responded to the figures: "We certainly respect that some customers will choose alternative browsers and that choosing a browser is about more than a handful of features.

"Microsoft continues to make significant investments in IE, including Service Pack 2 with advanced security technologies, and continues to encourage a vibrant ecosystem of third party add-ons for Internet Explorer."

Firefox wants to capture 10% of the market by the end of 2005. Other browser software, like Opera and Apple's Safari, are also challenging Microsoft's grip on the browser market. Opera is set to release its version 7.60 by the end of the year.

OneStat.com compiled the statistical measurements from two million net users in 100 countries.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4037833.stm

[DVTimes]

1 - Microsoft IE 6.0: 80.95%
2 - Microsoft IE 5.0: 4.18%
3 - Microsoft IE 5.5: 3.66%
4 - Mozilla Firefox 0.1: 2.79%
5 - Mozilla 1.x: 2.77%
6 - Mozilla Firefox 1.0: 1.79%
7 - Opera 7.x: 1.29%

[s9ann0]

glad its starting to turn around netscape 6 was a low point

[tony286]

ie is a piece of garbage

[Dynamix]

Plenty of Microsoft IE & Mozilla entries but nil for FireFox..

1 Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 1,284,532 85.09 6,981,759,888 85.20 33,433 80.45
2 Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 133,362 8.83 742,628,527 9.06 4,356 10.48
3 Netscape 5.0 57,619 3.82 280,677,310 3.43 986 2.37
4 Netscape 3.0 11,171 0.74 52,886,872 0.65 395 0.95
5 Netscape 4.0 8,113 0.54 41,669,728 0.51 1,091 2.63
6 Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 4,150 0.27 30,030,170 0.37 348 0.84
7 Arachmo 1,738 0.12 8,383,680 0.10 50 0.12
8 Download Ninja 7.0 1,378 0.09 1,237,892 0.02 16 0.04
9 Download Ninja 2.0 1,231 0.08 1,426,522 0.02 20 0.05
10 Opera/7.54 558 0.04 2,689,947 0.03 8 0.02
11 BorderManager 3.0 525 0.03 2,590,555 0.03 6 0.01
12 Java 515 0.03 1,263,280 0.02 10 0.02
13 http://@nonymouse.com/ 407 0.03 2,124,150 0.03 6 0.01
14 Googlebot/2.1 388 0.03 960,487 0.01 17 0.04
15 Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 297 0.02 3,341,554 0.04 53 0.13
16 Abyss 2.07a MSIE 6.0 262 0.02 1,296,425 0.02 2 0.00
17 Konqueror/3.1 223 0.01 1,168,438 0.01 2 0.00
18 Opera/6.01 161 0.01 710,586 0.01 2 0.00
19 Opera/7.23 159 0.01 645,505 0.01 3 0.01
20 NG/2.0 144 0.01 2,371,382 0.03 8 0.02
21 Opera/7.11 143 0.01 648,130 0.01 1 0.00
22 Opera/7.21 139 0.01 644,535 0.01 1 0.00
23 Konqueror/3.0.1 139 0.01 711,452 0.01 4 0.01
24 ia_archiver 136 0.01 590,488 0.01 79 0.19
25 Opera/7.60 133 0.01 648,257 0.01 1 0.00
26 Opera/5.12 133 0.01 2,602,029 0.03 52 0.13
27 WebCapture 3.0 132 0.01 681,118 0.01 2 0.00
28 Yahoo! Slurp 121 0.01 5,818,152 0.07 120 0.29
29 Internet Ninja 6.0 117 0.01 269,461 0.00 5 0.01
30 Internet Ninja 5.0 116 0.01 161,392 0.00 3 0.01
31 Spider 113 0.01 404,642 0.00 1 0.00
32 Space Bison/0.02 [fu] 107 0.01 566,770 0.01 1 0.00
33 Googlebot/2.1 96 0.01 1,241,669 0.02 60 0.14
34 Microsoft URL Control - 6.00.8862 95 0.01 470,246 0.01 1 0.00
35 msnbot/0.3 93 0.01 4,851,875 0.06 92 0.22
36 Netscape 2.0 79 0.01 1,410,571 0.02 27 0.06
37 Konqueror/2.2-11 77 0.01 1,541,704 0.02 29 0.07
38 Opera/5.0 77 0.01 1,493,339 0.02 29 0.07
39 Mozilla 72 0.00 1,446,488 0.02 28 0.07
40 Konqueror/2.0 71 0.00 1,541,062 0.02 29 0.07
41 Konqueror/3 65 0.00 368,115 0.00 1 0.00
42 \xb8>\x8cv\xd8\xf9\x91v\xd8\xf9\x91v\xd8\x05C 63 0.00 338,209 0.00 1 0.00
43 PlantyNet_WebRobot_V1.9 [email protected] 52 0.00 215,088 0.00 52 0.13
44 Konqueror/3.2 51 0.00 155,702 0.00 1 0.00
45 Opera/6.05 35 0.00 218,505 0.00 1 0.00
46 Nokia6230/2.0 24 0.00 131,507 0.00 4 0.01
47 Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 23 0.00 170,617 0.00 4 0.01
48 DA 7.0 20 0.00 46,965 0.00 8 0.02
49 URL_Collector 11 0.00 591,549 0.01 11 0.03
50 HTTrack 3.0x 9 0.00 162,070 0.00 8 0.02
51 Wget/1.9.1 9 0.00 484,893 0.01 8 0.02
52 < 6 0.00 82,525 0.00 1 0.00
53 Download Ninja 1.0 5 0.00 268,897 0.00 5 0.01
54 WebSauger 1.20b 4 0.00 215,414 0.00 4 0.01
55 SurveyBot/2.3 4 0.00 159,462 0.00 4 0.01
56 TAMU_CS_IRL_CRAWLER/1.0 4 0.00 216,478 0.00 4 0.01
57 Indy Library 4 0.00 215,069 0.00 3 0.01
58 Webdup/0.9 4 0.00 215,175 0.00 4 0.01
59 Pockey-GetHTML/4.12.0 4 0.00 108,754 0.00 2 0.00
60 Konqueror/3.1-rc2 3 0.00 161,897 0.00 3 0.01
61 PEAR HTTP_Request class 3 0.00 161,733 0.00 1 0.00
62 Nokia3100/1.0 3 0.00 26,978 0.00 1 0.00
63 SURF 2 0.00 10 0.00 2 0.00
64 Opera/4.78 2 0.00 107,800 0.00 2 0.00
65 Konqueror/3.1-rc3 2 0.00 107,797 0.00 2 0.00
66 dsdl469 2 0.00 69,364 0.00 1 0.00
67 DA 5.3 2 0.00 1,308 0.00 1 0.00
68 LWP::Simple/5.48 2 0.00 107,561 0.00 2 0.00
69 DISCo Pump 3.1 2 0.00 55,990 0.00 1 0.00
70 Baiduspider+ 2 0.00 108,018 0.00 2 0.00
71 larbin_2.6.3 [email protected] 2 0.00 107,574 0.00 2 0.00
72 dsdl552 2 0.00 90,625 0.00 1 0.00
73 WebCopier v2.7 2 0.00 108,159 0.00 2 0.00
74 Avant Browser 1 0.00 54,101 0.00 1 0.00
75 Java/1.4.2_04 1 0.00 53,903 0.00 1 0.00
76 libwww-perl/5.69 1 0.00 0 0.00 1 0.00
77 sna-0.0.1 [email protected] 1 0.00 896 0.00 1 0.00
78 Konqueror/3.0-rc6 1 0.00 53,918 0.00 1 0.00
79 Konqueror/3.0-rc2 1 0.00 53,902 0.00 1 0.00
80 HTML Text Download Class 1 0.00 53,898 0.00 1 0.00
81 T-H-U-N-D-E-R-S-T-O-N-E 1 0.00 53,776 0.00 1 0.00
82 Java1.4.0_01 1 0.00 32,633 0.00 1 0.00
83 Netscape/6.0 1 0.00 32,637 0.00 1 0.00
84 Konqueror/3.1-rc5 1 0.00 53,886 0.00 1 0.00
85 Mozilla [email protected] 1 0.00 53,772 0.00 1 0.00
86 Faxobot/1.0 1 0.00 32,559 0.00 1 0.00
87 Mozilla 1 0.00 53,769 0.00 1 0.00
88 HenryTheMiragoRobot 1 0.00 53,897 0.00 1 0.00
89 DnloadMage 1.0 1 0.00 0 0.00 1 0.00
91 Pockey/4.7.5 1 0.00 53,770 0.00 1 0.00
92 WebZIP 1 0.00 53,919 0.00 1 0.00
93 WebCopier v3.0 1 0.00 36,742 0.00 1 0.00
94 Konqueror/3.1-rc4 1 0.00 53,906 0.00 1 0.00
95 Internet Explorer 6.0 1 0.00 53,833 0.00 1 0.00
96 Konqueror/3.0-rc4 1 0.00 53,929 0.00 1 0.00
97 Offline Explorer/1.4 1 0.00 53,804 0.00 1 0.00
98 gfydaily.com 1 0.00 53,998 0.00 1 0.00
99 Konqueror/3.1-rc6 1 0.00 54,085 0.00 1 0.00
100 Der gro\xdfe BilderSauger 2.00u 1 0.00 53,981 0.00 1 0.00
101 Gigabot/2.0 1 0.00 53,980 0.00 1 0.00
102 CFNetwork/1.1 1 0.00 54,097 0.00 1 0.00
103 Mister Pix II 2.15 1 0.00 53,973 0.00 1 0.00

[dirtydesignz]

As a webmistress and adult designer, what are the benifits of switching to FireFox. I've heard nothing but good things. I hate ie and get errors all the time.

Any advice?

[BIGTYMER]

IE is swiss cheese.

[Pearl Noir Studio]

IE is always dying on my pc as it is now. it just keep bugging

[rml1608]

I just started using http://www.maxthon.com (formerly called MYIE2) - I absolutely love it after the initial learning curve and kicking form NEtscape mail to Outlook.

What made me finally want to go with an IE Based product? The difference in how quiclkly the actual browser itself boots amount, amount of resources it uses, and the speed of web pages you are surfing.

Maxthon is also skinnable, I went through about 50 different skins before I found the one I liked ;) It has tabs integrated into the browser in the BEST way possible, favorites can be put across the top like "Bookmarks" in netscape except you can have different bokmark sessions spread across that part of your browser.. For example mine are

Links, Football, Domains, Poker, and Adult right now ..

If I click any one of those it is a seperate bookmark list and I can even create sub folders in that folder etc.. It is pretty sweet if you ask me!!

Ryan