Search Engine Journal

Firefox Browser Market Share Increases as Internet Explorer Drops

Mozilla’s Firefox is starting to pose a danger to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer after years of being the darling of a strange mix of AOL enthusiasts and techies. Mozilla Firefox has now been downloaded over 19 million times, and with more web surfers becoming browser savvy, a range of reasons from security to adware to “being sick of Microsoft” has started a shift from average web users from IE, to Firefox. Mozilla Firefox now enjoys a 5% share of the browser market, gaining 0.9 percent since December according to a WebSideStory study.

Over the past seven months, Internet Explorer usage has dropped from 95.5 to 90.3, a 5.8 percent drop. In addition to Firefox, other browsers are also growing at a gradual rate. Apple’s Safari and Opera grew from a little under one percent to 2.1, a 1.1 percent growth factor.

How did this shift begin and why does Microsoft have such a huge influence in the first place? It all began with Mosaic and Netscape to get people to surf online, and later Internet Explorer took it one-step ahead.

However, Microsoft’s monopolizing nature turned Internet Explorer from a free browser that saved you from buying Netscape’s browser to a level that it has become distasteful. The lack of development and support for standards mean we are stuck with technologies 3-4 years old. And apart from all this, the bugs and security issues with Internet Explorer have became so dangerous to online security that government bodies have started issuing warnings to people to stop using Internet Explorer for surfing the web.

The Mozilla Foundation expressed its gratitude to the community of programmers and users who continue to spread the word about its open-source browser. Thus far, Firefox 1.0 has received approximately 19 million downloads worldwide. Firefox is not only just compact and fast; it is also updated very frequently to take care of any newly discovered bugs. Features can be added with extensions that provided excellent functionality to the browser. Online support is in abundance in the form of forums and IRC channels, which are full of enthusiasts ready to help any new user with the problems.