14 DAY TRIAL // Firefox and Safari are no match for Internet Explorer. When it comes down to audience and installed base, Microsoft's Internet Explorer far outweighs its direct rivals Mozilla Firefox and Apple's Safari. Mozilla was at a turning point the past two months. It killed support for Firefox 1.5 and it introduced automatic upgrades to Firefox 2.0. But the last update for Firefox 1.5 with the build number 1.5.0.12 and the Firefox 2.0.0.4 update rollout have done little to benefit Mozilla's position on the browser market.
According to statistics made public by Market Share by Net Applications, Internet Explorer consolidated and increased its installed base while both Firefox and Safari got to experience the bitter taste of eroding market share. IE is credited with a percentage of 78.84% of the browser market in June, up from 78.67% in May. IE has been on a continually descendant trajectory for the past couple of years, with Firefox gaining up momentum in the background.
But April 2007 signaled a change as Microsoft started to regain the lost terrain. The growing adoption of Windows Vista is behind the increasing share of Internet Explorer. XP users concerned with browser security that have turned to Firefox as the only valid alternative to IE6 are now converting back to IE7.
Mozilla's open source browser is stagnating, stopped dead in its tracks. Firefox's market share grew just 0.01% in June compared to May. But at 14.55% the past month, Mozilla has at least managed to stop a drop in market share that saw it lose approximately 1% from April.
June has also not been a good month for Safari. On June 11, Apple Chief Executive Office Steve Jobs, introduced Safari 3.0 for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista and Windows XP. Following the first 48 hours of availability of the Safari 3.0 Public Beta, Apple applauded over 1 million browser downloads. And yet Safari lost a consistent slice of market share, and is now down to just 4.49% from 4.82%. This is of course not a good thing for Apple, as the Cupertino-based company has touted Safari as the fastest and most secure browser on the market.
But while end users are starting to say NO to Firefox and Safari, Opera, along with IE, is also enjoying an increase in audience. Opera's market share grew from 0.74% to 0.91% in just one month. The general tendency is now reversed, and while users have been looking for an IE alternative in Firefox, with Safari and Opera having a loyal but limited and stagnant user base, now Internet Explorer and Opera are growing in the detriment of Safari and Firefox.
