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Firefox's once-strong surge against Microsoft Internet Explorer is showing signs of losing momentum, a Web metrics firm said Wednesday. San Diego-based WebSideStory released market share numbers for Firefox, IE, and other browsers that noted Firefox has crept up from April's 6.75 percent to September's 7.86 percent, a single percentage point gain in five months. During the first few months after its November, 2004, release, Firefox was adding another point each month.
There could well be a ceiling to the number of people willing to go against
the stream by installing an alternative browser when the one provided by the
OS manufacturer appears to be functional. Most people are terrified of their
computer; they won't do anything to rock the boat.
Take my sister. I had been badgering her to switch to FF as she had been
complaining how much junk and adware was coming in through MSIE. She didn't
dare to do it herself, so last time I visited Holland I did it for her.
Three minute job. (I do this routinely on Internet kiosks too. Suffering
doesn't improve character.)
She was utterly amazed that FireFox (1) actually worked, and accessed all
the pages she needed including her online banking, while looking pretty much
what she was used to. And (2) that she got only a fraction of the junk and
pop-ups she was used to... and (3) some additional, annoying MSIE bookmarks
that had "spontaneously" appeared at some point, and that she had tried
unsuccessfully to delete, were not carried over to FF.
Apparently the expectation of "freeware" mediocrity and crippledness sits
deep.
I hope to switch her to OOo next ;-)
My sister is not afraid of her computer, but she does routinely treat it as
fragile, which of course under Windows it very much is. Every action she
takes, like installing new software, carries the expectation that something
completely unrelated will go terribly wrong, necessitating re-install.
(After years of riding a tiger, a horse must be a refreshing experience. :)
She re-installs on average once every half year -- a one day job. Last time
it happened that one of the kids -- which have separate user accounts under
XP -- visited the wrong website. She noticed what had happened, and indeed,
the whole machine was b0rked, it slowed to a grind and all other users were
getting ad/mal/spy ware.
I, naive Unix junkie, asked her "but don't you have separate accounts?" She
answered yes, but doesn't seem to make any difference. (What's that for a
security model?)
What would make the difference is OEMs having permission to pre-install
FireFox. Thank you very much, US DOJ. Thank you very much, EU Commission.
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Take my sister. I had been badgering her to switch to FF as she had been complaining how much junk and adware was coming in through MSIE. She didn't dare to do it herself, so last time I visited Holland I did it for her. Three minute job. (I do this routinely on Internet kiosks too. Suffering doesn't improve character.)
She was utterly amazed that FireFox (1) actually worked, and accessed all the pages she needed including her online banking, while looking pretty much what she was used to. And (2) that she got only a fraction of the junk and pop-ups she was used to... and (3) some additional, annoying MSIE bookmarks that had "spontaneously" appeared at some point, and that she had tried unsuccessfully to delete, were not carried over to FF.
Apparently the expectation of "freeware" mediocrity and crippledness sits deep.
I hope to switch her to OOo next ;-)
My sister is not afraid of her computer, but she does routinely treat it as fragile, which of course under Windows it very much is. Every action she takes, like installing new software, carries the expectation that something completely unrelated will go terribly wrong, necessitating re-install. (After years of riding a tiger, a horse must be a refreshing experience. :)
She re-installs on average once every half year -- a one day job. Last time it happened that one of the kids -- which have separate user accounts under XP -- visited the wrong website. She noticed what had happened, and indeed, the whole machine was b0rked, it slowed to a grind and all other users were getting ad/mal/spy ware.
I, naive Unix junkie, asked her "but don't you have separate accounts?" She answered yes, but doesn't seem to make any difference. (What's that for a security model?)
What would make the difference is OEMs having permission to pre-install FireFox. Thank you very much, US DOJ. Thank you very much, EU Commission.
- Martin