The number must be off, at least by one....
Not using IE (it doesn;t exist for linux)
I tell Every web server my browser (Konqueror, FF, Opera) to present itself as IE because i get less complaints from a sizeable amount of sites i need to visit.

Therefore there are more alternatives used, they just cloak themselves....

These numbers in the past have been proven to be innaccurate. Get the facts on Firefox:

http://www.firefoxmyths.com

None helps more to FireFox than Microsoft. At the moment there is an not patched hole in the IE. Many users switched to FF. It is really ridiculous do not patch IE for such a long time. Our website already has 15% of FF visits.

A wave of IE vulnerabilities started with Windows code leak, which happened a couple of years ago. This piece of windows code obviously included IE code and bad and good guys started researching it for holes. Here FF came and started gaining popularity.

Another bad thing about IE and at the same time opportunity to FF is multiply IE versions. There are IE 3 versions: IE6, IE6 on Windows XP SP2, and IE7. The most disappointing fact that IE7 can not oust IE6, as it did with IE5 and IE5.5. Microsoft will not produce IE for windows 2000, therefore this browser diversity will remain. This is another good opportunity for FireFox, which is uniform on all platforms.

I'm using FF now, through I still found IE quicker and more convenient

==
Check web site accessibility, privacy, quality by Truwex online tool: http://checkwebsite.erigami.com/accessibility.html

By the end of 2008, FF will have no more than 5% userbase. IE7.5 will be sufficiently good for 20-30% of non-fanatical current users of FF (regardless if FF is "better"), and 20-30% more of current FF users will prefer Maxthon or Opera for two main reasons: universal compatibility and stability of the whole solution. MS is NOT gonna give up on their old way of force-feeding the world with proprietary standards.

Hahahaha there I am 0.34 percent yeaaa lol!!

What ?!?!?
You're still running Mosaic ???? :D

Hmmmmm. All i seem to see is more and more comments bashing every web browser out there. i believe what you all should be trying to do is instead putting your collective heads together to develop your own perfect browser. Failing a massive effort on that i still find that FF is one of the best browsers out there and i have become shocked by the ie7 and the way that it is advancing its browser, (eerily reminiscint of FF anyone?) anyways my entire point here is that everyone hates everyone elses browser, so get over it. with the inclusion of a 10% market share with FF it means that more and more ppl are actually learning more and are fearing less to stay with the known. It is a good thing that ppl have choices and I believe that you should try everything atleast once, as I myself have with everything ive come across (including women, and not men ;)but anywho i wish you would all start making comments to each browsers designer and who knows maybe one day we will have an end all beat all browser and we wont need all the bickering, (yeah right lmao). Thank you for your time and good day all.

Opera has only .55% share? - doesn't seem likely given other Betanews articles. Of course these days 100% is far from the limit.

The only problem with this statistic is that in my case I have downloaded FF at least 20 times in the last year on different computers at home and at work but still use it very sparingly if at all. So there maybe alot of downloads but how many peop;e are using it everyday

You're wrong. This data is based on "usage" not on downloads... everyone with statistics on his/her website can see data. In my case, I have a website and my stats reports that 15.3% of the users use Firefox. IE is used for 82.4% of my visitors.

*clap clap*

Yay! hooray for FF.

A product is only as good as the user. If you like it, you will use it. If the product is the best there is, but you DON'T like, people will find ways to prove it sucks.

Personally, my vote is for Netscape. I am not going to point out all the reasons why, it will be a moot point anyway.

I use FF, Opera, IE, Netscape, and I come in contact with all of them at various points in my job. I see what they all can do, and they all have a niche. I like Microsoft Products, but IE 7 isn't where I want to be. They are giving in to way too many customer "improvements" and I personally don't like the direction IE is heading. It works fine, but its been changed quite a bit.

FF is great, until you start using extensions. I have to add way too many add-ons to make FF useful, and that's probably why it crashes. FF was probably designed to be a powerful browser unto itself, and not support that extra stuff, like TABS, and tickers, and roboform..

I find that on a given day, I use a bunch of features, that are just not included with IE or FF (which is part of the reason I stick with Netscape).

I don't actually use IE in its basic form either, I use Maxthon.

With Netscape, it has everything I need, I use external download managers, roboform, tab browsing, Netscape lets me switch (on the fly) to IE / Mozilla, it is very stable, fast (enough for me!) and I don't have get a bunch of extensions to make it appear the way I want, I love the interface. Its clean, easy to use, and I like it.

Is it perfect? Of course not. Does it crash, and piss me off the point of wanting to remove the damn thing and start over? Yes, at least once a week. So I switch to IE, and then I realize FF is more powerful with better features, than IE, but then FF crashes, and I have reload all those extensions, and I find myself back to Netscape.. Its a viscious circle.

There is NO perfect solution, that's why we have so many opinions and products, everyone has a choice.

That being said, the choice is by virtue of democracy, and we don't live in Iraq. If you don't like Microsoft Products, quit bashing the hell out of them, we got it. Microsoft is evil, Google is evil (PCTool animosity interjection) and FF sucks, Opera is a toy, Sony is the devil, MPAA (ok, they need a good a** whipping but that's another story) blah blah blah.

OK. Fine.

When it comes to browsers, we can all agree to disagree.

You?

Making sense?

The world never ceases to amaze...

(By which I mean, I agree with you.)

...but Netscape? *grin*

firefox is totally bloated crap!! safari rocks!!
oh yeah, im a troll

you can try Camino (http://www.caminobrowser.org/) if your Firefox is bloated. It is a nice OSX version of Firefox beast (yes, Safari might be a good browser, but FF is a total beast if you ever explored it more throughouly)! The api it provides with the power in my hand as a web developer to inspect _every_ aspect of a page, it is a unmatched soft for me. I do not have any other such powerfull web tool like FF w/ extension, and I have Visual Studio installed :D

But you would need to go beyond the step of just basic using it, for that you'll have your Safari/Opera (flame) althought I would tell you many many things which Opera lacks (and not only from developer view (weak javascript) or standard support).

And you all must realize FF 1.5 was a slight upgrade of FF 1.0 branch (gecko changed a bit, api extensions were broadened) and that the FF 2.0 would be just a more feature rich.

But the _real_ wild animal is getting cooked for almost 2 years now (and for another to come) which is trunk version and which will become FF 3.0. And man, it will rock hard! Many many many changes to come!

Dude...he even *said* he was a troll...why are you feeding him?

"oh yeah, im a troll"

The first step is admitting you have a problem. ;)

Good for you!

Clarification for the rest of us?

lol, Great news and one up on the bug ridden M$ Internet Explorer. Great Job Firefox

Here in Finland Firefox is more popular than IE or close to IE, not too sure about current figure though.

the Firefox numbers are way higher, let's not forget that with the adblock extension you can block annoying spies like onestat from spotting you.

Great News!
I think with people embracing the new Web2.0 apps & Social Networking arenas that it will only continue to grow.

Extensions like FlickrFox are also some of the coolest things i've seen on the Internet in ages.

Web 2.0...

*lmao*

Riiiight...

IE is for noobs and people who don't know any better.
Opera doesn't have enough going for it.
what's not to like about Firefox?

Interested to know what Opera does not have, that FireFox does..

If anything Opera has stuff that Firefox needs extensions for...

So 85% of the users are noobs or don't know any better?
Not that I disagree with you but it shows us that MS profits by bundling there software (just had to bring that up again).

Still hope to see an experiment where FF is bundled with Windows. I can only speculate over the results but i know MS wouldn't like them.

Oh look, someone said: If anything Opera has stuff that Firefox needs extensions for... for the 98506th time! :D

Don't take that as hostility. I just find it funny that EVERYWHERE I go on the internet people are saying that(some like it's a negative). It gets annoying. >.>

If anything, this is a Firefox advantage over Opera. Users can pick and choose the components they want. For example, do they want integrated IRC? If they don't, it's not part of the base build, if they do, they can install Chatzilla.

With Opera, you get IRC whether you want it or not (although I failed to find the freaking option for it when I was looking for it once).

Extensions?

Just for starters. ;)

Have a nice day.

Opera's got a Plugin API (compatible with Netscape), it's got Widget support (in V9), and finally, you don't need extensions, as it's got them already.

If anything FireFox's extension support, is it's very own ActiveX security nightmare...

lmao.

Riiiight.

You do know that plugins are not the same as extensions, right?

Why do we need widgets in a browser? Konfab is free and doesn't require you have the damn browser open. 100% useless, not to mention, not even in a stable release yet.

As for FF extyensions being an ActiveX security nightmare...that's just dumb.

To install a firefox extension:

New window forces you to wait, in hopes you will try and understand what is going on, for 5 seconds, before allowing you to install it.

If you *do* install it, you must restart firefox to activate it.

To install an ActiveX applet:

Click on the infobar, click allow to make the window go away, done.

IE / ActiveX has come a long way, but it still doesn't come close to Firefox Extensions.

Have you used a UserJS script for Opera? Have you done the same with a FF extension? If so, it must be painfully obvious why FF extensions are preferable.

Lets not forget, Opera basically invented all the good stuff that Mozilla (and now MS) have taken on.

Popup blocking, Tabs, Sessions, Mouse Gestures. All Opera innovations.

Basically Opera innovates, Mozilla copies, and MS caves in and copies..

There are alreay malicious FF Extensions. There are also plenty of unpatched FF security holes.

Opera has none...

and yet both FF and IE have higher market-share...

Opera has none...

Spoken like a true fanboy. :)

Firefox is by no means perfect, but you're a fool if you think Opera has got it all. Both Opera and Mozilla innovate. Usually Opera creates a new feature and people love it. Word spreads, and then a more polished version gets shoved into Mozilla browsers. Next MS copies it into IE, and people try Opera only to find half the stuff they love is "half-baked" in that browser.

So yeah...they innovated most of it. Doesn't mean they did all of it the best way though. My point is don't assume they're the best just because they create the most cool new features. How well a feature is implemented is important too, and that's where Firefox rules - just about anyone can take a feature and fix/tweak it until it's perfect. That's something Opera does not have, so until they get 500 dedicated programmers tweaking Opera to perfection, Firefox will win feature-wise simply because of the sheer number of people(hired and volunteer) developing for it.

Plenty = 2? O_o

Secunia isn't perfect either. There could be quite a few unpatched holes in either product. I would place bets that Opera has less, but not none. Simply none discovered yet.

I only know of one dangerous extension(which was fixed in less than a day), and by default you can only install pre-verified ones from Mozilla.org

yea i see the firefox company is growing each and everyday. Firefox will continue and continue and wont stop continueing to grow unless microsoft has some backup plan. Or else they will lose something... ( i cant think of anything else to rephrase that, but i think u know what i mean >.< )

IE7 Is even worse that IE6 so I don't see anyone leaving FF or Opera for it.

IE 7 is a massive improvement over IE 6. Besides the obvious improvements like tabbed browsing, IE 7 has a much better rendering engine. The quality and speed of the IE 7 rendering engine finally approaches that of Firefox 1.5. IE 7 also does a very accurate job of determining automatically whether to open a link in a new window or a new tab. The only thing I don't like about IE 7 is you can't have the browser automatically clear your browsing history and cache when you exit the browser.

the IE7 rendering engin is greatly _subpar_ of tha t of Gecko 1.8 or 1.9 to come! It was improved just from a security view, and it was improved only _slightly_ to not break those IE6 enterprise bad written sites!

its standard support together with css support is still very funny, even MS agrees that the IE8 will push it to right direction.

ever seen ACID test? I guess not...

Acid is a joke.

Just becuase it's out there allows browser devs to code to it while skipping the actual "compatibility" part, because hey...if it passess acid2, it works, right?

BS.

"Acid is a joke."
tell me my friend, who came up with acid?

Microsoft, has publicly stated that Acid2 is not one of their primary focuses, and that the upcoming release Internet Explorer 7 will not pass the test

some guy working for mozilla came up with Acid2

ff cannot pass acid/ and continue to have vulnerability means that it is NOT the best.(as they claim it to be)
FF is BS.

acid tests are one of the most important parts today to test rendering (taking away SVG support capatibility or improvements in javascript apis).

the whole web today is transfering from inline style coding and table layouts to css styles (which is only good, it saves bandwith and developers life:-), and ACID just test how is browser compatible with various css standard techniqes. You do not need to pass ACID completely (I doubt someone will use css power even to 70% of its potential), but at least some basic one would be nice (IE :hover only on anchors, anyone?)

Even MS is moving towards css way of developement in their effort today, so ASP.NET technology contradict with IE7. The first is brilliant, look on their ongoing support of improving css from the time it was released (upcoming css menu adapters, css plugins to visual studio, MS guides written using css for change etc) or XHTML strict rendering. Then look on IE7 frozen layout...bah.

Many browsers won't pass ACID, but they do at least to some ammount (70-80-90%) with OPERA9 and khtml browsers (Safari) reporting to pass it on 100%.

The problem is, IE6 and IE7 will just render complete mess.

"some guy working for mozilla came up with Acid2"

Did I blame MS for ACID?

Nope.

It's just a way to "prove" your browser is the "best"...unfortunately, it doesn't have anything to do with quality, speed, or even compatibility because it would be so easy to make it compatible with ACID...but nothing else.

Never said FF was the best either. My commect was in reference to ACID only. Take your flambait elsewhere.

Acid2 should be no-one's focus, and should only occur as a side-effect to greater compatibility in all rendering areas, not just a focus on "passing the ACID".

"acid tests are one of the most important parts today to test rendering "

Of acid.

It tests nothing else. Grea! So they kludged a hack in there to make the acid test look good. Doesn't mean they did a damn thing towrads actuall compatibility with any complete renddering standard...just enough to get by in the acid test.

Big whoop.

Again, acid is a joke. It should not be used as the "be all-end all" ruler upon which any browser should be judged good or bad.

Passing the acid should be a by-product, not an end result.

"Acid2 should be no-one's focus".
so all those who came up with are fools ?
so developers at mozilla trying to make ff pass it are fools too ?

pctool is the ONLY wise one, rest are fool ?

I'd like Border Spacing in IE, thanks. :)

Never said that. Nice jump on that conclusion. They should score those.

It simply should not be used as a measurement of a browsers abilities. It a good tool to see where you stand, but it can be too easily fooled to be used as a grading tool.

Next time you want to argue with me, do it with something I actually said, ya know?

Good for you.

Are you trying to imply I wouldn't?

Nope. Just mentioning that lack of CSS support sucks.

The Blue E is setting in the East, and a new dawn approaches, the time of the Firefox has begun.

...only on your planet...

hoax

:0

this is not significant at all. if you think of it 10% is only significant cause we are used to counting with decimals (base 10). but it is not more significant than 16% or 12.564% for that matter. as long as it keeps increasing, thats good enough news for me

That is very true, this is only a minor setback for ie and microsoft, I think it affects their rep more then anything else.

It also shows that Firefox really is a great browser, you can even stick it on a usb key and run it from any computer, even if the computer is locked down, say at a cyber cafe or at a library or even your job. So I am sure companies will catch on, and the more companies that support it, the less popular active x will become which will help support other standards, more features, products and true inovation will flurish. So this just proves that competition in every market is absolutely necessary. We all know that if netscape was still around we would be far beyond what we have today. It took firefox to really get the web standards out in the open, as well as actually make new web technology usable and supported.

You also have to love the extensions available, that just run seamless almost as if it's part of the browser, if you don't like it you can remove it and either way it's just as natural and seamless.

I tend to run Portable Firefox off a USB pendrive myself, especially when I'm travelling and borrowing someone else's computer.

It's just really nice to be able to take my broswer, bookmarks and so on in such a tiny package! :-)

The only thing it proves, is that people make a choice. The numbers are STILL not valid.

Consider, FF may have 10% market share, but that DOESN'T mean people STOPPED using IE.

I personally use Netscape I don't like Firefox, it crashes (we are not discussing the why and what could be wrong, it just does -- its the only program that doesn't run consistently on my machine) but if I did have it, I probably would use it.

At any rate, there is room for ALL browsers. Opera, FF, Mozilla, IE.. its just preference.

Some days I feel like using Netscape (primary browser) and some days IE is better (internal sites, and some sites are better suited for activex).

It doesn't mean FF is the exclusively ownership of 10% of the market.....

It doesn't mean that the 90% people must be using IE, it just means that 10% of the world sites (testing for FF) have seen hits from FF browsers. That's *ALL* it means.

Is it an indication that more people are using FF? Yes. Does it mean that IE is dead? I seriously doubt it.

Didn't take 'em long to get past 10%.

It would sure be nice to see them at about 40% or more.

Personally I think IE 7 Beta 2 stinks and if it continues that way I think Firefox will gain more ground. I don't think that Opera even has a chance. It's too clunky.

We need to be back in the days of good competition so that MS keeps innovating.

I bet if MS would have never been spurred by Firefox and Opera they would still be pumping out IE 6 and they would just ad a "SP3" for IE that added tabbed browsing.

I know back in 2003 I was hoping for something new for IE6 and all we got was sp1. What a bunch of crap, and nothing new. Now 2006 still nothing new and IE is junk. I could do better myself using the tutorial that comes in the express VB. Microsoft needs to bring the jobs back to the US and they might get something done. As it stands it takes the company weeks to get back to you about bugs you report as a beta tester and the people can't even speak English. I will not beta test for MS any more. I will not buy from them anymore. MS can't even fix bugs in certain office products that have been there for years. They need to bring the jobs back to Americans! I won't buy Vista I am sure it will be another ME seeing how they can't even speak English to understand the bugs you report.

So...you still take the phone support method...? Try emailing Microsoft...I get a response usually same day, and man they get me fixed up with hotfixes, etc. Yes, most of the emails are handled overseas, and know what? They're much faster and better in email support.

Since most of America's tech support is based in India for HP, Dell, Sony, etc., I can't complain much. Support.Microsoft.com often answers any and all questions or issues I have as well.

I've been using IE7 beta 2 since January without problems and I've grown to like it alot. If what you're saying is true about it no sane person would use it. IE7 changes way more than IE6 did. Sounds to me like you haven't even tried the latest IE7 beta to me.

Ah..

Got it now.

Anglocentrism, at it's finest. because they can't speak your language, they can't code.

Very nice...

What's your next trick?

No they call you to ask you questions, but you can't understand them. I hate companies that send things over seas to people that have never seen computers and try to have then write code for it.

It'll be interesting to see what affect IE7 has on these figures when it is eventually released. "Windows Internet Explorer" has made up a lot of ground in the feature areas where FF and Opera were leaving it behind.

I am 110% sure IE7 will make the stats go up for FF. I don't know why MS is even trying with junk like that. The Beta isn't even worth putting into alpha yet.

Works fine on my systems. Even the PoS 1.5Ghz system.

It's also worth noting, that Opera has only recently changed it's browser to identify itself as Opera, previosly masking as IE, for compatbility reasons.

This will see Opera's use rise in the next 6 months...

Even when disguised as IE, though, it can easily be identified as Opera because its user agent string is something like:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; en) Opera 9.0

(Compared to something like "Opera/9.0 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)".)

Either way, unless the stat-collecting company is unaware of Opera's existence, the UA string still providies enough to recognize it as it truly is either way while still tricking most websites into thinking it's IE.

??, i read the release note that Opera 8.x already IDed itself as opera, and almost 5 month ago, ppl are saying we would see drastic marketshare increase of opera, but seems didnt see anything at all.

Opera loads at start faster, but is slower rendering and breaks most pages, has NO extensions!!! Opera is for people that just don't know better. FF crashes to freaking much and IE is just junk!

Errm, it's the User Agent string it fakes... So sites cannot distinguish it, unless the user changes the default UA.

Opera rending, javascript and startup is faster than all the other browsers, including IE and FireFox.

http://www.howtocreate.c...rSpeed.html#testresults

It's also more secure, with 0 known vunrabilities.

http://secunia.com/product/4932/

That website keeps changing all its stats. On my computer Opera 8.5.3 cold starts in 1 second, and Seamonkey does in 3 seconds. Warm starts are instant.

I agree that Opera is faster and renders more beautiful, but there's a couple positioning and sizing issues with it that I dislike...like it not supporting some resizing features from the Netscape 4 days.

Now granted, I know of 0 websites that actually use those features(td resizing), but *I* want to use them since every windows browser but Opera supports them. Instead I have to add hacks in and load it up on movable CSS layers. And, ofcourse, those CSS layers don't go exactly where I tell them in to Opera either. They only do that in Seamonkey, Firefox, IE6, IE5, and Netscape 4.

Just my personal beef with Opera though. I have a lot more to say about IE. :)

Opera is the ONLY browser to pass the ACID2 Test (admitally, not the 8.53 stable, but the 9.0 preview series).

http://www.webstandards....les/acid2/test.html#top

still can not render protopage.com, my homepage

Is it W3C Compliant? If not, try fixing that, and come back...

Many sites that are not displayed correctly in Opera, Firefox due to the sites being non W3C compliant.

Opera can't even render BN. WTF are you talking about fanboy?

Oh, but the 9.0RC can....

Of course, it's not final yet. But what does that matter to a fanboy?

No, that first UA string I gave *is* Opera's UA string when it's set to identify itself as IE (perhaps my wording "disguise" was confusing before--I'm talking only about the UA string, not the interface, if that clears anything up.)

The second is the Opera-identifying-itself-as-Opera string.

Obviosuly the second one is easily identifiable as Opera ... but so is the first if you know where to look.

Rock on man! Now that they're king of the CSS, I hope they'll fully support my HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0!

WHO CARES

yeah!

Net who?

Yeah, can't even find them online...anybody have their URL???

Not sure, but you could try,

www.i see dead browsers.com

...*rolling eyes* silly boy, you can't have spaces!

NSS.

Yeah, it kinda does matter because that means the IE monopoly is gradually decreasing. In turn allowing more universal browsing.

Let the flames begin...

...really though, does it matter that much?

no.

Yes, this is good for consumers. Increased competition will stimulate more innovation from Microsoft. Although IE 7 still needs a lot of polishing, I don't believe we would have seen as much progress made without Firefox and Opera cutting into thier market share.

"Although IE 7 still needs a lot of polishing"

No IE7 needs to get out of ALPHA, it isn't even worth beta yet. It is crap and I don't think MS will get it out of beta ever with the new way they are sending all of the projects over seas to people that have never even seen a computer. MS is killing themselves!

funny...I've never seen you troll before gawd21...

I'm using it--it works fine for me.

AT this point (sliding scale) it'll be 110 years before it sees 50%

YAY firefox !!! :) take that IE

lol, you seem to have forgoten who owns the other 90% of the market.

It always amuses me when people gloat about being pushed around on the whim of a monopoly...

What are you, a masocist? Choice is good - it also makes MS work harder to keep up, rather than sitting on their hands, doing no browser development.

*What are you, a masocist? Choice is good - it also makes MS work harder to keep up, rather than sitting on their hands, doing no browser development.*

Yes, this is America, right? We do have the right to choose, last time I checked. I find it very interesting that people vehemently take a stand AGAINST choices that others make, expecially when its just an opinion.

What I don't like is when people unfairly criticize companies (like Microsoft) for being who they are. They can't be good enough for everyone, no company can. But when a company becomes huge, people start to get jealous, and that's where you start having problems. It becomes an automatic target and companies like Microsoft (who started off very small, common man, blue collar and all of that) and it was a laugh to discover what they were trying to do, no one is laughing any more, but here we have another company doing the same thing. In 10 years, no one is going to even care who FF is, or was, and there will be comments about how Mozilla used to suck..

IBM, AT&T were the big time companies, now they are trivial acronyms. They are still around, but they don't get the mainstream press they once did with their current products, but yet they make money and they make their stockholders very happy.

Anyway, Microsoft does a fine job, whether people choose to believe it or not. Obviously, as you say, they are NOT sitting on their hands.

Microsoft is a very agressive company. They are their own biggest critics. If people knew what goes on at Microsoft when it comes to development, people wouldn't be so quick to complain. They ALWAYS strive for perfection, whether or not its achieved at the end user level, is an entirely different matter.

When the product leaves the development floor, its good. When the end user complains and it doesn't work, gee, that qualifies as User Intervention, and THAT's when things quit working.

"When the end user complains and it doesn't work, gee, that qualifies as User Intervention, and THAT's when things quit working."

As with any rule...there are exceptions. ;)