Firefox Threatens IE in the Browser Market
Mozilla is starting to pose a threat to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer after years of being the darling of a strange mix of AOL enthusiasts and techies. This week Mozilla released the preview of FireFox 1.0, 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 Mozilla based browsers – especially FireFox.
It’s happening all over the web, CNet reported that visitors on their site using Mozilla and Firefox jumped to 18 percent for the first two weeks of September, from 8 percent in January.
WebSideStory reported that Microsoft’s share of browser users who visited top e-commerce and corporate sites shrank from 95.6% in June to 93.7% in September. Further more the tracking firm’s study showed that people using browsers made by Mozilla grew from 3.5% to 5.2%.
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.
Add to this the fact that the next version of Internet Explorer is only expected to arrive in 2006 and that too only for people who would upgrade their operating system to Longhorn does not help the online community.
Mozilla Foundation is coming to the rescue of anyone who wants to get an alternative. It is an open source initiative that is developing web technologies to provide secure software to people to use the internet. Their primary product Firefox is the most popular and is on the verge of the first major release with version 1.0 planned in the coming weeks. Even though it is still in the technological preview stage now, it has made a big difference to the online surfing habits of people.
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. And the fact that it is free and available for all the major platforms (windows, Mac and Linux) makes it even more worthy of trying out.
All the buzz Firefox is getting will go long way promoting it to more users online who can help the cause by choosing this nifty software over Internet Explorer to make their experiences of surfing more secure and fun. You can be a part of the revolution! Give Firefox! a try and support the cause. The web can do with a better browser that promotes technologies which makes internet more secure and accessible. And Internet Explorer is inhibiting that development.
Sushubh Mittal is the technical consultant to SEJ and blogs at Software Journal.
I’m using FireFox now and really do enjoy it. In the office we have been banned from using IE for security reasons.
I started using Firefox with my SuSE Pro 9.1 distro at home and am now also using it at the office. If is fast, complete, and improves upon an already good browser (Mozilla 1.6). Thanks for the “Tool of the Year”!
Firefox is amazing, it will cut your browsing time in half with tabbed browsing and adblocking, not only and I browsing faster but I’m saving bandwidth too!
I too enjoy the brower tabs, cuts down on my task bar overflow.
Firefox does rule. Its good to see Microsoft’s products being seriously challenged at long last. Along with this and Googles Gmail set to give hotmail a run for its money Bill Gates really should start worrying where hes gonna make his next billion.
With a 94% share of the active web browsing market, I don’t think MS has too much to worry about, but in time, we may see that percentage drop even more. I’ve noticed a lot more people who never even thought about who their browser is made by asking about Firefox.
The successful thing Mozilla has done with Firefox is position it as the alternative to IE – and it’s a cool name too!
I agree that firefox is an amazing program, and deserves widespread adoption in the face of Microsoft’s refusal to devote resources to securing IE and adding better standards supports. One thing I would like to point out however is the statistic this article quotes: “CNet reports that its site visitors using Mozilla and Firefox jumped to 18 percent for the first two weeks of September, from 8 percent in January.” This was taken from a cnet article where they were quoting a change in users on another site, W3Schools.com, and not there own site, which hasn’t changed quite as drastically. I hate to see misquoted statistics.
I just started using Firefox this week, and I do like it (I used Netscape for years). However, I can’t believe no one else has mentioned Opera as an also-excellent alternative to IE. It, too, offers tabs, skins, is light-weight, and has fast load times. Cheers to both for taking on the heavyweight!
I’ve been using FireFox (and Opera) quite while now for security reasons. Main reason for me to use IE anymore is to check out how my HTML/CSS looks in it.
Extensions are something that makes FireFox so great and powerful. Especially AdBlocker and gmail extensions, among some others.
I have suggested to many of my friends that they should try FireFox out, and usually they are quite happy and keep on using it after that :) Microsoft is losing IE users all the time, and I think they should be worried if they wanna keep IE user base very high..
Yes, I have to agree that Opera is very worth to mention too as great browser. In some things it’s even better than FireFox in my opinion, like it (atleast in my system) seems load faster than FireFox.
The CNet quote “Among CNET News.com readers, site visitors using Mozilla and Firefox jumped to 18 percent for the first two weeks of September, from 8 percent in January.”
http://www.news.com
Well, such an jump in FireFox userbase is quite likely due all recent security holes in IE :)
People have been couraged to swap other browsers quite actively lately all around world, and I think it’s good thing because of all security vulnerabilities in IE.
Though, I am sure there are atleast some similar security holes in Opera and FireFox, but sofar these browsers haven’t been main target for exploits.
Yes, I must agree that Opera also provides excellent alternative to Internet Explorer legacy. And infact I use it myself all the time! :)
I’d like to get some of the stuff the FireFox advocates are smoking. I tried the program on my mac and it slowed my machine down so much I had to dump it.
Hmm, I do not own mac so I can not comment about FireFox behaviour on mac. What were specs (cpu speed, memory) of your Mac? On PC FireFox works as a charm.
Internet Exploder has always been bloated, bug infested and has more security risks than MS could ever know and deal with.
Mozilla (Firefox) is light, feature rich, upgradeable and extremely fast! It’s the Browser of today and the future. The only Browser I have ever used and will ever use.
Bill Gates and MS have issues and unless they pull up their socks and get with the program, they will be left behind,… far behind in what’s going on in today’s technology.
the best web browser in the pc history… firefox is the heaven for those who liove internet
On a Mac, try Camino from Mozilla.
I got tired of getting too many pop-ups from IE (even with third party pop-up blockers), and spyware & viruses were just becoming too hard to avoid. When Firefox 0.8 was released, I decided I needed to switch browsers. There was a lot of hype about the new version of the fox at the time, so I decided to give it a try. At first, I wasn’t too pleased because of its lightness and me being a power user. Then I checked out some extentions, and now I love it more than I ever liked IE. I’ve now completely shut out IE, practically disabling it altogether. I haven’t had any spyware, viruses, or pop-ups ever since I switched to Firefox. Thank you Mozilla for making the best browser ever, and especially thanks to those who make amazing extentions to an already great browser!!
I would caution everyone from recommending Firefox to others for security reasons. As we’ve seen in the last few weeks, Firefox is also susceptible to various security flaws. Users who have a false sense of security because someone they trusted told them Firefox was immune to security problems will be an even bigger problem.
Firefox Rocks.
NO browser is ever 100% secure, but FireFox is surely much more secure option for any (poweruser or not) than IE is. Currently exploiters are targetting IE due to fact it’s most popular browser…
My experience is that Opera has some similar flaws as IE in respect to standards… specifically CSS (cascading style sheets). That’s not to say Firefox has 100% compliant, but seems to handle w3c css better than either IE or Mozilla… and I suspect Opera.
Err, actually Opera (FireFox too)is quite good with CSS standards and sticking on them, atleast as long as you use proper DOC TYPE so browser is not in quirks mode.
internet explorer is the best web browser about and microsoft’s percentage wont drop because they will fix all the problems and make their browser even better than firefox and other web broswer’s when their latest version comes out and people can download it and you can also have it already without having to download it if you end up having the latest operating system code named longhorn
Firefox is all fine. its fast, the tabbed interface is better than have ur task bar full of browsers but firefox still seems to eat up lot of RAM sometimes as much as IE and if u want to have 2 firefox windows for any reason the memory advantage over IE is almost lost. Also it takes about 4 mins to startup first thing in the morning and as always with Netscape/Mozilla and Firefox there is always problems with user profiles. they for some reason never seem to manage and maintain user profiles right. but i use firefox now and put up with all this but like somebody said hackers target IE and so u know the security issues but nobody has targeted firefox/opera yet
Firefox is THE GREATEST ! Lets turn the tables and make Internet Explorer the Netscape of the Internet.
Hmm, nice comments. I will give FireFox a try. Actually, I’m an Opera fan. It has an awesome feature that I can’t find in IE: Mouse Gestures. Does FireFox have it?
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