14 DAY TRIAL // Firefox 4.0 will take the world wide web by storm this year, becoming the most popular browser worldwide by the end of 2011, according to Mozilla. The prediction was made by Asa Dotzler, Director of Community Development at Mozilla, who noted that Firefox 4.0 will grow faster than the recently launched Internet Explorer 9.
“Sometime this year, IE9 will top out at ~20% of usage and Firefox 4 will reach 25-30% usage making it the most popular browser in the world,” Dotzler tweeted.
At this point in time, Microsoft’s IE8 is the most used browser worldwide according to Net Applications, with a share of 34.95%. The second most popular browser worldwide is Firefox 3.6 with 17.82%.
Dotzler’s prediction is based on the number of Firefox 4.0 downloads, which have surpassed the 37 million milestone today.
By comparison, Microsoft revealed that Internet Explorer 9 RTW was downloaded over 2.3 million times in the first 24 hours after launch, on March 15, 2011.
In the first day after release, Firefox 4.0 was downloaded more than 7.1 million times.
Dotzler also went ahead and put together the chart included on the left, illustrating the global usage share of both IE9 and Firefox 4.0 according to statistics shared by StatCounter and Net Applications.
“As you can see from the chart, Firefox 4's release kicked off with considerably more excitement and momentum. IE 9's release, which was backed by one of Microsoft's biggest launch marketing campaigns in recent history, had a comparatively weak showing,” he stated.
“So what explains this disparity? It's you all. It's every one of you that downloaded Firefox 4, found it to be awesome, and told all of your friends and family about it. No ad campaign from Microsoft can top that. Keep spreading the word. Firefox answers to no one but you!”
I can certainly understand the enthusiasm around Firefox 4.0, it’s a great browser, after all, and I’m sure that there are many users that agree with me.
I’m also sure that Firefox 4.0 will continue to grow both in terms of downloads and usage share over the course of the year.
However, Firefox isn’t what it used to be, not since Chrome was introduced. While Google hurt Microsoft and IE, it also took users away from Firefox, and my prediction is that Chrome will continue to do so.
Net Applications put all Firefox releases at 21.74% usage share worldwide as of the end of February 2011.
Realistically, I just don’t see Firefox 4.0 reaching 25% or 30% usage share by the end of 2011, and doing it all alone. Not with Firefox 5.0, Firefox 6.0 and Firefox 7.0 being released this year, as Mozilla plans.
It’s simply taking on the role of Captain Obvious when concluding that Firefox 5.0 will take away from Firefox 4.0's users, and that the same will happen with every successive release of the open source browser.
IE9 RTW on the other hand has more chances to reach 30% usage share globally. It’s the best possible upgrade for older versions of IE on Windows Vista SP2 and Windows 7, and will be for quite some time, since Microsoft doesn’t plan to ship IE10 for quite some time.
Firefox 4.0 Final for Windows is available for download here.
Firefox 4.0 Final for Linux is available for download here.
Firefox 4.0 Final for Mac is available for download here.
Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 is available for download here.
Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 is available for download here.
Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows Vista SP2 64-bit edition and Windows Server 2008 SP2 64-bit edition is available for download here.
Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows 7 64-bit edition, Windows 7 SP1 64-bit edition, Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit edition and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 64-bit edition is available for download here.
