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Don't believe it!

Story: Firefox Jumps In Browser Market ShareTotal Replies: 10
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TxtEdMacs

Nov 01, 2005
5:15 AM EST 		The statistics are probably no better than one full percentage point. One is also left to wonder how the statistics are both compiled and processed. For example, are these numbers based upon unique users (seemingly - if more than one machine is behind a router they share a common IP address) or just page loads/requests? The latter is no more than a skewed weighted average of user activity on sites, not a statistical measure of the tools employed.

I have reason to believe Firefox usage is climbing, e.g. just learned last week at my daughter's school Firefox is the installed browser. This was a shock given their tilt towards Microsoft OS and products.
PaulFerris

Nov 01, 2005
6:18 AM EST 		TxtEdMacs: I converted both of my neighbors over a year ago -- painless from their point of view. Word of mouth has spurred a lot of this conversion. They report faster surfing, lower infection rate and love the added features.
dinotrac

Nov 01, 2005
6:32 AM EST 		Remember when the numbers went down around Labor Day?

I think part of that could be attributed to scads of new computers being bought/given. At first, they would be used with the browsers that came pre-packaged. By now, lots of those university users and others may have loaded up Firefox.

In short, part of the difference may be a genuine seasonal change.
TxtEdMacs

Nov 01, 2005
7:18 AM EST 		Paul and dino - agree with both of your ideas, but you both don't quite get the significance of my comments. My fault, it was understated. First, last year at the university my son attends if one attempted to log on the network using IE there was a message directing the user to download Firefox. However, it at my daughter school (junior high), which has switched. Despite it being a smaller site by number, its impact may be greater.

Paul - I got a friend and Windows custom applications developer to change his browser to Firefox. Despite his problems he has remained impressed. Moreover, he has made the effort (many times by contacting me) to keep Firefox his default browser. Furthermore, when he was tweaking a web site game he created he got it to work as well with Firefox as with IE despite the many problems he encountered. I was the one that informed him that MS tends not to follow web standards, which he confirmed in later reading.

dino - good premise, but hard to prove. Nonetheless, anyone giving you percentages to the hundredth of a percent (or even a tenth) is pushing dubious statistics. Random survey techniques are both difficult and expensive to execute effectively. Moreover, I assert that estimates of survey error ranges are much too optimistic.
dinotrac

Nov 01, 2005
7:45 AM EST 		TxtEd (If I may be so informal) --

Absolutely. Statistical data roams within its margin of error under the best of circumstances. In something like this, well...
TxtEdMacs

Nov 01, 2005
8:52 AM EST 		dino - heck shorten it to "Txt", or more; be assured I am not even case sensitive except perhaps when I am bashing, greping, preg_matching, etc. and even there I resort to the "-i" switch.
dinotrac

Nov 01, 2005
11:23 AM EST 		txt -

-i

;0)
PaulFerris

Nov 01, 2005
11:31 AM EST
Quoting: -i


Dino, how can you be so insensitive?!?
helios

Nov 01, 2005
11:47 AM EST 		Dino, how can you be so insensitive?!

The shell knows not sensitivity...only function...-i think

helios
dinotrac

Nov 01, 2005
3:51 PM EST 		Paulie -

I'm sorry, really I am, but you have to be practical about these things. I am sensitive on a case by case basis.
PaulFerris

Nov 01, 2005
4:18 PM EST
Quoting: I'm sorry, really I am --


Finally, something we can agree upon!
Quoting: but you have to be practical about these things. I am sensitive on a case by case basis.


Sounds, literally, like a lot of fun for a lawyer!

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