Which browser is better? Firefox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, Netscape? Usually, when it comes down to comparing browsers, the five names mentioned above come into play. And although Internet Explorer dominates the browser market, the solutions that have developed in its shadow enjoy far more popularity when compared to the Microsoft product.
According to an ongoing online survey performed by SurveyWare by Net Aplications, no less than 64.17% of the participants have stated that they prefer Firefox to
any other browser. Mozilla's open source solution has had an ascendant trend for the past couple of years, and has managed to slowly but continuously erode Microsoft's share on the browser market.
Safari and Opera, the occupants of the second and third positions in the user's hearts, have also scored higher preference ratings than Internet Explorer. However, neither Safari nor Opera managed to come anywhere close to Firefox. Only 13.54% of participants have voted Safari for the best browser while Opera received 11.84% of the votes.
Internet Explorer, although in the fourth position, is the big loser of this list. A total of 9.83% of the users surveyed consider IE the best browser. With the five year gap between Windows XP and Windows Vista, with IE 6 SP1 only managing a superficial impact on the browser market, Microsoft has lost a lot of terrain when it comes to customer perception.
With a share of 78.03% of the browser market, IE is not the users' first choice. Not even by far. The simple fact that there is no proportion between the IE's market share and it popularity among users should raise the alarm for Microsoft. The Redmond Company has poured a lot of effort into Internet Explorer 7 and came out with an excellent product on so many levels, but IE7 failed to impact user perception.
