Firefox Rocks Again
(This bit from 4-29-05)
Yeah, I've posted about Firefox before. However, today it reached an amazing milestone. 50 Million Downloads. Yeah, can you believe that?
For several years, IE has commanded in excess of 95% share of the web browser market despite the fact it sucks more than a nymphomaniac in heat (this applies across all platforms). All the other browsers combined shared the remaining 5%. Sad and paltry. The sole competition was Netscape which languished after AOL bought it. Mozilla was nice, but it was bloated to the point many people eschewed it.
Now Firefox, (version 1.0.4 is out now) in under a year of official release, is now over 8% of the market share alone and should be at 10% within a month or so. Their logo is "take back the web" and if you haven't at least tried it, do so. Not only will you be able to have a better browsing experience with far less security holes, but you will have the added side bonus of telling Microsoft to shove it up their collective arses.
The above image is a composite animated GIF I made using several of the better taglines. Steal it if you will.
Better yet (this edited bit added 5-12-05)
Microsoft's Share of Browser Market Slips: May 12, 2005 2:21 PM EDT
NEW YORK - Microsoft Corp.'s share of the U.S. browser market has slipped below 90 percent as the Firefox browser continues to grow in popularity, according to independent tracking by WebSideStory. Firefox had a 6.8 percent share as of April 29, an increase from 3.0 percent since WebSideStory began tracking Firefox separately in October. Microsoft's Internet Explorer share was 89 percent, a drop from 95 percent in June.
The figures are for all operating systems combined. On computers running Microsoft's Windows, Internet Explorer has a 91 percent share, down from 97 percent in June. Outside the United States, Germany is among the leading adopters of Firefox, with a 23 percent share, compared with 69 percent for Internet Explorer. "They just seem to be averse to Microsoft products and really interested relatively in these open-source products," said Geoff Johnston, a WebSideStory analyst.
Also (this edited bit from Cnet added 5-13-05)
IBM is encouraging its employees to use Firefox, aiding the open-source Web browser's quest to chip away at Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
posted by Rev. CMOT TMPV @ 5/12/2005 09:04:00 PM (permalink)
Stumble It!
2 Comments:
Enjoy your blog, and I agree that Firefox is currently a better browser than IE.
But.
You're comment about "added side bonus of telling Microsoft to shove it up their collective arses." reveals an interesting bias, don't you think? For many years before Firefox, IE WAS the better browser, but for some people, better was not and never will be important -- anti-Microsoft was and is the only way to go, because they're successful and attempting to cover as much ground as possible (which is good for mass development and horrible for tightness of code).
I'm not defending Gates' business practices, and I'm no Microslut -- I work on a dual boot Red Hat/XP system mostly because I can't bear the thought of not being able to play Half-Life 2 -- but really, if Firefox is the better browser (and it is), let its increasing use speak for itself. I've never understood the vitriol against a company whose dominance was virtually the sole driving foce in the ready availablity and ever-declining price of hardware AND software
. . . don't hate . . . love . . . .
=+)
Vitriol is warranted, as evidenced by all the shady-business-practices lawsuits they've settled. They (provably, see Burst, Novell, Apple) steal smaller companies' code and when it comes to light, pay them off in a fat settlement that includes the shut-up fee. See also the anti-trust suits won against Microsoft in the US and Europe. See also their threats to various nations to coerce them not to use alternatives. This sort of behavior bothers me from any company. It makes me root against them.
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