Comments on: Firefox Is Not Beating Internet Explorer

By: James Young

James Young — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:32:01 +0000

I use Firefox, but the smarmy answer is the one to which Thumper beat me: those figures just prove your readers are Neanderthals, Greg!

By: fact!fiction

fact!fiction — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:20:05 +0000

Take a look at the good ‘ol wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers

By: Thumper

Thumper — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:12:45 +0000

Chrome is meh. Firefox does mostly everything I want it to so I see little reason to go with Chrome.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:18:09 +0000

Rob - Chrome’s alright. I’ve had an issue that when I switch through tabs it automatically refreshes a page, making it take longer to actually multi-task than Firefox. I’ve also become quite attached to some of my FF plug-ins and the customization I’ve done with it for my smaller screened netbook. Not writing Chrome off entirely, just not sold yet.

By: Rob Smalls

Rob Smalls — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:37:04 +0000

Agree with Thumper and Jason both. It’s all about demographics - not everyone likes to tweak on their PC. As long as it works to their standards, they won’t see any reason to shift to Firefox, although I find it is vastly superior to IE.

OT, has anyone tried Chrome yet?

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:41:44 +0000

Actually, Firefox hasn’t passed IE yet, IE has just fallen below the 50% threshold for the first time.

For the month of October
IE7: 26.9%
IE6: 20.2%
FF: 44%

Certainly at the rate of FF’s growth and IE’s decline you may see FF take over within the next 3-6 months, though that could be offset by if and when Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 break out.

Thing is, even as IE falls behind FF overall, the trend may not carry over to some genres of sites, political blogging being one. As the internet is used more by tech types then you’ll see their preferences take over for internet trends. But when you look at other genres tech folks don’t fiddle in all that much - let’s say political blogging for example - you find an audience that is less tech savvy and more likely to use whatever is immediately at their disposal on their machine, which means Internet Explorer.

You can see that in your own traffic:

http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s28bvblnet&r=13

Or that of others:

NLS - http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s30oister&r=13

RK - http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s14raisingkaine&r=13

While there can be an expected trickle down over time of FF moving more and more into the market, overall we’re going to have to deal with IE for a long time to come. Hopefully Microsoft’s realizing that they have less clout than they used to and will adopt web standards that they don’t create, but something makes me doubt that.

By: Thumper

Thumper — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 13:53:06 +0000

I think it depends on your website content. Your blog postings are conservative which means largely older crowd who are likely to use whatever is installed on their computer. I run blog where I post my tech solutions to problems and I see Firefox 90% of the time. I think IE is still dominant as majority but it’s not longer super majority and is quite the minority on many sites.