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Analytics firm: Firefox EU share is at its peak, US share down

By Tim Conneally, BetaNews

April 25, 2008, 11:15 AM

According to French Web metrics firm XiTi, Mozilla Firefox continues its unabated growth in popularity, reaching around 29% usage share in Europe overall in March.

Microsoft Internet Explorer saw its usage share begin to drop in the at the end of 2005, roughly one year after Firefox 1.0 was released and began to be embraced internationally. In 2006, the XiTi Monitor reported Firefox had continued its market share increase to around 23-25%.

By last year, the firm's study of the Browser War between IE7 and FF2 showed that the two were very close, with Internet Explorer 7 leading in 16 European countries and Firefox 2 leading in 14.

Led by Finland with 45.9%, Poland with 44%, and Slovenia with 43.7%, the latest numbers from XiTi show that Firefox's record high 29% European usage actually increases by just under 2% on weekends, suggesting it may be many IE7 workplace users' preferred home browser.

Firefox is actually "in very light retreat" in North America, according to the latest XiTi Monitor with a 1% decline, while its progress in South America and Asia is similar with that of Europe. Africa's use of Mozilla Firefox hit a record high in March 2008 with 17.9%, marking a 3% growth, the biggest increase of any continent this time around.

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By pforbes

edited Apr 26, 2008 - 3:29 PM

In this moment Opera is no doubt one of the best, and of couse much better than IE6. Also Maxthon is better than IE6. Nevertheless there's only a minority using any of both. IMO most users don't have the slightest idea of what a computer is and they only go where they are driven by ads and salespeople. Many have bought new superfast machines provided with giant hard drives, even more than once...only to keep doing the same old things that they did when they used Win9x. Industrial networks are in the hands of professionals and therefore mean a totally different world.

Score: 0

By tscar13

edited Apr 26, 2008 - 1:04 AM

"Firefox EU share is at its peak" Once again, just when I think the hack writers here at BN don't know the 1st thing about journalism, they show that they are capable of reaching new lows. This phrase directly implies that EU use of Firefox has peaked and now will begin it's decent and the facts don't bear out this moronic babble.

Score: 0

By bousozoku

posted Apr 26, 2008 - 12:14 AM

Could it be that a lot of the people normally using Firefox version 2 have already skipped to the version 3 beta?

You wonder how many people in the U.S.A. are still using IE version 6 and being phished to death.

Score: 0

By improvelence

posted Apr 25, 2008 - 2:14 PM

Whats the share for Opera....hah

Score: 0

By the artist

posted Apr 25, 2008 - 4:49 PM

To answer kindly:

If market share reflected quality in a Firefox vs IE scenery, then Firefox should hold a 90% market share in the world leaving that 10% to sites that are IE only and other reasons.

BUT IT DOESN'T.

nuff explained...

(my intention is to defend Opera)

Score: 0

By tscar13

posted Apr 26, 2008 - 9:45 AM

No reason to defend Opera or FF or IE. Use whatever browser you feel comfortable with and meets your needs. The world is a big place and there is plenty of room for all three.

On my system, I have all 3 but tend to use FF. This isn't a criticism of the other browsers but just that I feel more comfortable with FF.

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Apr 25, 2008 - 3:27 PM

Low. Therefore vulnerabilities are low. Therefore I am happy.

Score: 0

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