Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Internet Explorer Mozilla The Internet IT

Internet Explorer's Share Dips Below 90% 463

Posted by Zonk from the something-about-a-fox dept.
sheepoo writes "CNN has a story stating that, according to a WebSideStory report, Internet Explorer has slipped below 90% usage share for the first time." From the article: "Firefox, an open-source browser collectively developed by the Internet community under the Mozilla Foundation, had a 6.8 percent share as of April 29, an increase from 3.0 percent since WebSideStory began tracking Firefox separately in October."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Internet Explorer's Share Dips Below 90% More

Internet Explorer's Share Dips Below 90%

Comments Filter:

  • Statistics (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LiNKz ( 257629 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:20PM (#12523631) Homepage Journal
    Googledot [googledot.org] receives a few hits everytime someone mentions it on Slashdot. I've been keeping track of the hits and such, which show 67% of slashdotters (who are willing to click a link for a laugh) are using firefox, and only 14.5% of them are using Internet Explorer. It is interesting to look at how many people still use Windows over *nix too. I guess it is all very much depending on what type of website you're counting from too.

    You can look at a few statistics here [extremetracking.com] that have been collected since over a few months.

  • Maybe it's just my surfing habits (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gentoo Fan ( 643403 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:22PM (#12523651) Homepage
    but I haven't run into any sites lately that require IE. Recent Mozilla handles everything just fine. Apart form some minor rendering weirdness on a few sites I haven't had to jump over to IE for anything.

    • Except... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Mr. Underbridge ( 666784 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:25PM (#12523688)
      but I haven't run into any sites lately that require IE. Recent Mozilla handles everything just fine. Apart form some minor rendering weirdness on a few sites I haven't had to jump over to IE for anything.

      ...for, I dunno, *this* page, which still doesn't render right in Firefox.

      • To be fair, Slashdot's retarded and broken HTML is as much to blame for their screwy layout in Firefox as Firefox itself.

        • Re:Except... (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          No it's not, you fucking moron.

          Every time - EVERY TIME - this topic comes up, somebody smug tells us all that it's Slashdot's broken HTML. It's not. It's a bug in Firefox.

          I've tried posting links to the bug report on Bugzilla. I've tried showing developer comments. I've tried reasoning. I've tried telling them Firefox 1.1 will fix it.

          Every time, somebody replies "yeah, well that may be all true... but it's still Slashdot's fault." What is it with you fucking morons? What will it take for it

    • I just ran into this yesterday. VA DMV License plate checking/reservation won't operate properly with Mozilla, yet it will with IE. Here's the link [state.va.us]
    • I also haven't. I did run into an artificial barrier when my bank decided that only IE 5.5+ was worthy of accessing the online-banking site. Downloading the firefox extension to change the user agent id got me past that barrier and the site worked just fine.

      I guess the only problem I have left is the slashdot pages that occassionaly render wrong. Ah the irony...
    • Yahoo videos don't work in Firefox -- Netscape 4.7 or IE only, according to the error page. And two of my three credit card banking sites require IE to render correctly, though I can still pay my bill online with Firefox if I wade through the warning messages and jumbled layout.
    • Some crap APS.NET forums make you use IE before you can post, that is all I have seen maybe I just need to update to FireFox from Mozilla or update Mozilla. Which brings up another point I like Mozilla better than Firefox, has Moz development keeping pace with FireFox?
    • but I haven't run into any sites lately that require IE

      While casually browsing the web I have noticed the same thing. But a dependence on IE is still very much alive in a corporate setting. Take the company I work for, I've wanted to deploy firefox ever since I've been around, but I can't because a lot of the websites the brokers and agents use are IE only. Like the MLS... and several other sites. One of the sites they use (I believe it's SABOR) actually requires a 'patch' to be installed that runs at
      • This would be one reason my employer is committed to support all browsers after IE 5.5 and Netscape 4.7. Yes, it reduces the overall features and "Cool" widgets we can use, but it means we'll work EVERYWHERE.
      • Yeah. An interesting point here. At work I have to access web sites that are IE only for business reasons (most of them intranet sites). I use Firefox for almost everything else. However, every once in a while, I accidently go to a link in IE just because it happens to be open. If it weren't for the incompatibility of sites, I would get rid of using IE. Everyone always talks about the people who try out Firefox and still use IE in terms of IE market share, but I personally believe more of that effect

    • Weight Watchers blocks Firefox users (Score:5, Interesting)

      by doublem ( 118724 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:49PM (#12523979) Homepage Journal
      You haven't visited http://weightwatchers.com [weightwatchers.com] have you?

      I went there with Firefox 1.0.4. If you examine the URL they forward you to and the site itself you learn that their web masters assume Firefox doesn't support JavaScript or Cookies, and there's no "Click here to use the site anyway" like button.

      I had an exchange with their customer service a month or two ago about this, and their reply amounted to saying they wouldn't support an "unpopular" browser.

      I sent back an article about Firefox having more users than all non IE browsers combines, and they sent back the same form letter about not supporting every browser.

      Funny thing is, if I spoof my browser string as Internet Explorer 34691.0.45.72.22222 running on Windows THFFFT, the site works fine. I haven't signed up yet though, since I won't spend my money on a site that require me to futz around with obscure browser settings to work.

      I also found it odd that their email replies seemed to consider Firefox to be an Opera variant.

  • Monopoly no more! - Well, not really.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheCeltic ( 102319 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:23PM (#12523668) Homepage
    Now "only" 9 out of every 10 systems uses IE. Hopefully FireFox will continue to grow and IE will continue to shrink.. of course that will be tough when Microsoft copies all of Firefox's features in the next release of IE.
    • The only reason IE has 90% market share is because of the monopoly. If it was a level playing field with unbundled browsers, IE would be very lucky to make 10%.

      That IE has 90% is a clear demonstration that the DOJ anti-trust stuff is having no real impact on slowing the Microsoft monopoly.

    • Now "only" 9 out of every 10 systems uses IE. Hopefully FireFox will continue to grow and IE will continue to shrink..
      I think we can get most of the benefits if IE usage goes down to 85% or so, and stays there. It isn't that most people use IE that troubles me, it's the exclusion of other browsers. A sizeable minority is enough to prevent that.
    • I think Firefox will always be winning converts from IE, but I agree it will happen more slowly when IE7 is released. Tabbed browsing in IE will give fewer people an incentive to make the switch, but increased security will keep people switching over. Of course, not only will IE7 be integrated into new Windows media, but will probably be made a requirement to install Office or someother Microsoft app to ensure its on 99.9% of the Windows boxes, but short of IE moving ahead of FireFox, I doubt anyone that

  • Who measures and how measures? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:24PM (#12523671)
    What does 90% market share really mean? I use both IE and Firefox on the same machine. Do they both get counted?

    I love vague facts and figures

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:24PM (#12523675)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:No, wait! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:28PM (#12523729) Homepage Journal
      Just imagine what the market would be if every user were presented with a informed opinion about each browser without having any of them installed yet, when they first connect to the internet and need one.

      • Re:No, wait! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ironsides ( 739422 )
        Just imagine what the market would be if every user were presented with a informed opinion about each browser without having any of them installed yet, when they first connect to the internet and need one.

        Ummm.... How would they connect to recieve the information in the first place? IRC? FTP? TelNet? HTTP sure seems to be out since they won't have a browser...

        • Re:No, wait! (Score:3, Funny)

          by m50d ( 797211 )
          Imagine if there was a way we could communicate without the internet. Waves travel well through air, perhaps we could make them somehow, and then have others interpret them and understand what we were saying.
          • Indeed! And what if, dare I say it, you could inscribe a dark ink onto a light surface that would look like text a computer screen, that could be distributed through various means.

        • Re:No, wait! (Score:3, Insightful)

          by arkhan_jg ( 618674 )
          Same way they always managed before IE being a mandatory unremovable part of the OS; get a browser by other means.

          ISP's still give out CDs with a browser and an account setup script. That browser could just as easily be firefox as internet explorer. Flash drives, network installs, isp ftp setup script, hell even a custom front end that not only lets you choose your ISP but your browser too.

          But nobody does any of it, because there's already a browser built into the computer. Why bother supplying a second o

        • Re:No, wait! (Score:3, Insightful)

          by overbom ( 461949 )
          Ummm... why would they need to connect to the internet to be presented with a choice? OEMs bundle 2nd and 3rd party software along with Windows. Just about every software OS / distribution vendor that I can think of has distributed 3rd party application software with their OS. What makes Microsoft any different, besides your perception of what they're willing to do to ensure the implementation of standards and interoperability with the rest of the computing world... oh, wait.

          For example, Opera / Firefox
      • And just imagine what it would be like if every user cared.
      • I'd rather the users were informed what their options were rather than given informed opinions about each browser.
      • Just imagine what the market would be if every user were presented with a informed opinion about each browser without having any of them installed yet...

        Most users don't care about consumer reports or any other informed media when it comes to browsers. When they turn on their computer they want it to go to the "internet". That's why the major desktop OS's (Windows and OSX) have a browser experience out of the box. It's just as common as a file explorer.

        Speaking about file explorers, there are 3rd party f
    • watch what happens when IE7 is released

    • Re:No, wait! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by farker haiku ( 883529 )
      Standard's market share of refining was 64% in competition with over 100 other refiners at the time of the trial that resulted in the government-forced breakup).
      I'd say that 93% is greater than 64%, which was enough to force the federal government to breakup of Standard Oil via the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. I could be wrong though.

    • Shoestring? Not quite (Score:5, Informative)

      by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:34PM (#12523812)
      Firefox has managed to take ~7% of the market in a short period of time from a massively well-funded competitor on an ultra, ultra, ultra shoestring budget.

      "Ultra shoestring budget"? Relative to Microsoft sure, but the vast majority of Mozilla development occured with the direct financial support of AOL, Sun and what was left of Netscape after the buyout with numerous other companies contributing. The Mozilla foundation was given millions of dollars to get started. While none of that in any way detracts from how impressive their accomplishment is, I would hardly describe them as working on "an ultra, ultra, ultra shoestring budget."
      • Also add in that Microsoft pretty much disbanded their IE team for several years, so that meant there was no improved competition for Firefox. If Microsoft had continued to work on IE (adding tabs, anti-popup, more security etc) then I wonder how much market Firefox would have now.

    • Re:No, wait! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by KillerDeathRobot ( 818062 )
      The problem was never really that IE was bundled with the OS. The problem was MS forcing vendors NOT to bundle Netscape with Windows, which they could get away with due to the Windows monopoly. Thus they were illegally leveraging their monopoly.

    • Re:No, wait! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by killjoe ( 766577 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:37PM (#12523845)
      "But, wait, actually. Seriously for a second. Isn't this exactly the type of competition that the DOJ argued would/could never happen as long IE was integrated into Windows? Wasn't the argument that IE was illegal tying because there would not be competition due to MS's dominance with Windows? "

      That's right. And you yourself admit that 90% is dominance. Why don't we wait till MS share drops below 50% before deciding who was right and wrong. As of today it looks like the DOJ was 100% correct. Due to bundling of IE a superior, more secure and free product is not able to get even a 10% share.

    • Re:No, wait! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by GigsVT ( 208848 )
      It's called "anticompetitive behavior" for a reason. It doesn't mean that it's impossible to compete, it means that they are using illegal tactics to make it more difficult to compete with them.

    • This kinda proves what MS was saying, and disproves what the DOJ was saying.

      Lets see an obviously inferior product maintains 90% market share through leveraging another existing monopoly even thought they add basically no new features for years and despite a competitor who gives away a superior product that is written by people who are so fed up with how broken the aforementioned product is, they make it for free. Yeah, I'm sure that monopoly isn't being used unfairly and bundling has nothing to do with

    • Re:No, wait! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:42PM (#12523910)
      No. Antitrust law is supposed to preserve the possibility of competing businesses, which FireFox is not. If you have to literally give away the product for free to "compete," something is wrong.

      If IE were unbundled and it had to stand on its own, Netscape would still be in business, and Opera would have much more of a chance.

      Microsoft has effectively cut off the air supply of the competition, which is illegal. Think what a dump the Internet would be by now if business and individuals hadn't donated a top-quality browser. That shouldn't be necessary.

    • You probably didn't notice, Mozilla/Firefox 'competes' by being free. Netscape was effectively crushed and Opera isn't setting the world afire.
    • So you are saying that after their measures taken against Microsoft, another product was more able to compete fairly without unfair business practices?? i don't see your point.

      DBesides, open source IN SOME WAYS is a response to monopolistic practices.
    • All it shows is that even in the face of crushing dominance, that there is room for niche competitors.
    • But, wait, actually. Seriously for a second. Isn't this exactly the type of competition that the DOJ argued would/could never happen as long IE was integrated into Windows?

      Apples and oranges.

      Firefox is FREE. Netscape was payment-optional. There are non-free browsers that still cannot compete in any meaningful sense, despite feature superiority. (no, I'm not one of those goofy Opera nuts).

      No software company will EVER sell a browser that competes with a free-bundled IE, on the most popular desktop OS.

  • Hmmm.... (Score:2, Informative)

    by RancidMilk ( 872628 )
    Reminds me alot of this article on /. talking about IE being below 90% 2 months ago. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/19/053720 5&tid=154&tid=1 [slashdot.org] "The only war the French have ever won was their revolutionary war... sad that it means that they also lost that one..."

  • I show 15.52% (Score:5, Insightful)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:26PM (#12523718)
    I run a website for information about a certain stock that I follow. Most of the people visiting the site are individual investors. The site is about a company in the drug testing business. I say all that, because I wanted to note that the people visiting the site are not what I would consider to be technical people or so-called early adopters.

    FireFox has tallied up 15.52 percent of the hits to my site since May 1.

  • first time? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by spoonyfork ( 23307 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [krofynoops]> on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:28PM (#12523728) Journal

    Internet Explorer has slipped below 90% usage share for the first time.

    First time? Was the author born after 1998?

    • Why? Was IE above 90% market-share and fell below 90% sometime prior to 1998?

  • Gates should be wetting his pants (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jesus IS the Devil ( 317662 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:29PM (#12523743)
    See this is a new type of business model that Microsoft can't beat. It used to be that when they decided to bundle or bully, competitors are dead.

    No more. Firefox doesn't need to make $ to survive, so M$ can't beat by price. Bundling won't work either because broadband is everywhere.

    Now, the killer app (analogy) is reputation. IE has been branded as spyware/exploit-ridden. People want an alternative. IE has lost its credibility.

  • For the first time? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Limburgher ( 523006 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:30PM (#12523758) Homepage Journal
    So, even before it was writte^H^H^H^H^H^Hcopied from Mosaic, it had 90% market share? That's AMAZING! :)

  • how much is FF saying it's IE? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) <yayagu@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:32PM (#12523782) Journal

    Okay, just curious, but wondered how much of the traffic measured accounts for, knows about, figures in, etc., for Firefox "reporting in" as Internet Explorer so as not to get rejected from using that site. I have mine set to be "Internet Explorer" for my on-line banking (go figure). Think it would add any significant usage for Firefox?

  • Fewer MS-only websites, I hope (Score:5, Insightful)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:32PM (#12523787)
    I hope that this data will motivates webmasters and site designers to create more universally viewable sites.
  • Before I take a break for my weekend, I'd like to request slashdotters to throw some light on what methodology these WebSideStory guys use to get their numbers. Is it the case that when I fire up IE, the IE numbers get a plus and when I switch do Firefox, even on the same machine, Firefox numbers get updated accordingly...and this happens wherever on this earth I might be? What software could do this?

  • For the first time? (Score:3, Informative)

    by JudgeFurious ( 455868 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:35PM (#12523827)

    It had less than 90% long ago, in the before time...

  • ...of Internet Explorer users, but one has to wonder what percentage of those users also have pirated copies of Windows?

  • What could we do to do firefox even more atractive? I mean, it has taken half of a year to steal a...5%?. If we *really* want to spread firefox we need to spread more quickly, at this rate it'd take years to have 50% of the market share.

    • Re:Not enougth (Score:5, Interesting)

      by diegocgteleline.es ( 653730 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:42PM (#12523903)
      (answering myself) - maybe lobbing to the windows 98 users? AFAIK people using windows 98 makes around 50% of the people who uses internet. Internet explorer 7 will not be released for windows 98 and in fact Microsoft should already have stopped updating it with security fixes (windows 98 is 7 years old)

      May be we could use a catch phrase, say "the one secure option for windows 98/me/NT 4.0" "Microsoft forgot of your Windows 98 box? Try firefox". Or something like that.
    • If you assume it's an s-curve adoption rate, then the acceleration of adoption in the past month may indicate we are entering the steep part of the curve.

  • IBM jumping on Firefox (Score:3, Informative)

    by unk1911 ( 250141 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:39PM (#12523873) Homepage
    In related news, according to this story [informationweek.com], IBM employees (numbering +- 300,000) are urged to switch over to Firefox. That should help the numbers even more

  • I'd bet... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Samurai Cat! ( 15315 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:40PM (#12523889) Homepage
    ...if Firefox (or any other browser) were installed with Windows machines by default like IE, said browser's share would be much higher. MUCH higher.

    People use what's put in front of them. IE's 90% share doesn't mean it's that much better than the alternatives.

  • Early on, MS preferred WebSideStory's numbers to OneStat [onestat.com] because OneStat showed more of a decline for IE. Personally, I think OneStat has more accurate global numbers. This is a trend that MS can't ignore, and can't really do much about.

  • Shows how Firefox/Mozilla/Microsoft/Google(.org|.com) compare:

    http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=149315&cid= 12516546 [slashdot.org]
  • I think its important to note that this isnt just a good sign for Firefox, its also great news that the more standards compliant browsers (like Safari & Opera) are taking share away from older, broken ones like IE 4 and (to a lesser extent) IE 5. As more of the web transition toward browsers that allow developers to take advantage of the power of CSS, we can begin to push further toward the semantic web.
  • ...these IE using motherfuckers?

    I haven't used IE in months [other than on my pocketpc where I don't really give a shit].

    In windows firefox is just a nicer browser. MS IE has so little to offer that is productive...

    Tom

  • "Averse to Microsoft products"? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 13, 2005 @04:56PM (#12524079)
    Why do people assume that the only reason for not using Microsoft products is that you don't like Microsoft?

    I don't use Cubase because I hate Emagic, or PSP because I don't like Adobe.

    I do use Firefox because it works fine, and I have not had any spyware since I started using it. It's quite simple really, and if Microsoft comes out with a better browser, I'll use that. They are both 'free' as I got explorer free with Windows.

  • Useless Metric (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NaugaHunter ( 639364 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @05:03PM (#12524186)
    How does it count people using a browser that reports it is a different browser to not be blocked from content?

    *Cough* [msnbc.com]

    I don't have anywhere to host pictures, but using Safari just changing the User Agent gets you different style sheets. Net effect is some stories render horribly when it serves a Safari page, but fine when it serves an I.E., both in Safari. I'm not going to accuse them that that is their goal, but it has definitely happened and changing the User Agent reveals no problems that required a separate style sheet.

  • 90% share? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by payndz ( 589033 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @05:24PM (#12524426)
    Bill Gates: "The iPod has fallen below a 90% share of the music player market! Apple are doomed! Buy Windows Mobile 5.0!"

    Bill Gates: "Internet Explorer has fallen below 90% of the browser market! We still have total dominance! OSS is a dismal failure! Buy Windows XP!"

  • For those who HAVE to use IE... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by inkdesign ( 7389 ) on Friday May 13, 2005 @05:59PM (#12524817)
    I'm forced at work, and now use the Maxthon browser which is based on IE, but has features like tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, RSS and more. It's free, btw.

    http://www.maxthon.com/ [maxthon.com]

    Really makes the switch from browsing at home to work alot smoother, even if it isn't a perfect solution. What it really makes me think though - if these guys can get tabbed browsing and whatnot into the current IE, why is MS not doing the same thing to slow lost market share to more usable/secure browsers???

Slashdot Top Deals

Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations"

Close