Internet Explorer

Firefox 3.0 to Drop on a Bleeding Internet Explorer

IE8 not even on the horizon

By Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor

2nd of June 2008, 15:48 GMT

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As Internet Explorer 8 is by all means not even on the horizon, Firefox 3.0 will drop in just a few weeks and has the potential to bring even more pain to an already hurt and bleeding browser. According to statistics made available by Net Applications, the open source browser is irremediably converting Internet Explorer users, with the existing IE7 managing to do little to help stop the erosion of Microsoft's share of the browser market.

Internet Explorer is now down all the way to 73.75% of the market and Firefox alone is responsible for the continuous downward spiral of IE's audience. At the same time, Mozilla's open source browser climbed to a share of no less than 18.41% of the browser market. However, Net Applications is not yet ready to give all the credit to Firefox alone. Deceptive tactics for spreading browser products worked for Apple, the Cupertino-based hardware company serving Safari 3.1 as an Update to Windows users who never had the browser installed in the first place. As a direct consequence, Safari 3.1 went from 0.07% of the market in March 2008 all the way to 0.27% in May.

Mozilla implemented a similar strategy, although less deceptive than what Apple sunk to. However the installation process of Firefox 3.0 Release Candidate 1 was tweaked to contain a box already checked which makes it the default browser of the operating system it installs on.

"The option is clearly displayed and labeled, unlike Safari, which misleadingly labeled the Safari install as an 'update' (since correctly changed to an 'install'). However, this practice is a break from the traditional practice browsers employed of defaulting this option to off. Prior to this change, Firefox 3.0 was already rapidly gaining usage share, so it will be difficult to measure the effect of this change", Net Applications stated.

Still, Firefox 3.0's market share almost doubled in a single month, jumping from 0.39% in April to 0.62% in May. The change to the Firefox 3.0 installation process will undoubtedly survive into the final version of the browser and will only contribute to taking IE even further down. Although it was made available since March 2008, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 has a market share of only 0.3%. IE7 climbed only an insignificant 0.14% the past month and is now up to 46.03%, while IE6 dropped to 27.52%. Firefox 2.0 passed the 17% milestone and now enjoys 17.17% of the browser market. Opera 9.x also climbed to 0.69%.

But with Firefox 3.0 planned for general availability in mid-June and with Mozilla looking to attract a record 5 million and more downloads in just the first 24 hours, Microsoft has to brace itself for a veritable earthquake of its Internet Explorer install base.

TAGS:

Firefox 3.0 | IE8 | IE7 | Internet Explorer 8

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