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21 Mar 2009
The latest browser statistics for February show that Mozilla's Firefox is gaining in popularity with web developers, while arch rival Internet Explorer continues to wane.
The figures, published by web developer portal W3Schools, shows Firefox being used by 46.4 per cent of web developers, up nearly one per cent from January, while various versions of Internet Explorer, when taken together, dropped by 1.2 per cent to 43.6 per cent. Google's Chrome browser rose slightly to four per cent.
W3Schools admitted that its site is primarily for people with an interest in web technologies, and that its users are therefore "more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user" and are not representative of the general market.
"The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers," the site explained.
The latest statistics from Net Applications make better reading for Microsoft, putting Internet Explorer's share for February at 67.44 per cent, with Firefox at 21.77 per cent.
Microsoft will be hoping that the release of Internet Explorer 8 this week will help it to increase its share over Firefox, which has been gradually gaining in popularity.
IE8 was designed to offer closer compliance with web standards, more security features and improved performance.
The latest stats from Net Applications show Google's Chrome in fourth place behind IE, Firefox and Safari, with a 1.15 per cent market share.
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Do you agree?
Internet Explorer, Browser for the Masses
Masses of crap content. Only put tabs in bcoz FF was doing so well bcoz of tabs, but not just bcoz of tabs M$. FF is becoming known as the way better of the two bcoz the add-ons make various repetitive jobs not so mundane. IE on the other hand has nothing to compete with FF on this one. Good work M$. Up to your usual standards of mediocrity. I guess that leaves a lot of room for repeat work & repeat sales like Vista to 7 & so on. I can't say XP to Vista bcoZ Vista is junk.
Posted by: Rex Alfie Lee 30 Mar 2009
Firefox+Firebug is the key
I've been using IE8 as my main web browser since beta. But Firefox's still on my harddrive thanks to the indispensible add-on Firebug. If IE8 gets the built-in developer tools to be as good as Firebug, then it's goodbye Firefox. But I doubt Microsoft will do that. As the EU will be breathing down their necks.
Posted by: Taz 22 Mar 2009
W3Schools is owned by Microsoft
And real web developers don't consider it a "developer's portal" so much as a "site that gives up and coming web designers/developers terrible misinformation." You see, web folks hate IE because it ignores web standards. So if you want to know how to do something, and IE violates the standard, W3Schools tells you how to do it the proprietary IE way. Which means if you take the information from that site at face value, your sites won't work correctly in anything but IE. This is especially true for Javascript information on that site. That said, your conclusions about the user base and their browser stats are spot-on. Maybe this will get that idiot at PC World who hasn't seen the 3.1 benchmarks to shut his trap. For the record, Opera is my favorite browser.
Posted by: Josh L 21 Mar 2009
Chrome is my home
After installing Chrome, I made it my default browser. Why? Take a look at the opening page; it has icons of your most used sites, a listing of your last several bookmarks is there also. It is faster than just about any of the other browsers I've used and overall it is just smoother and more intuitive to use than any browser I've used since I first installed Netscape in 1994 or 5 (memory is shot ) IE has a nasty habit of attracting spyware, Firefox blocks a lot of the garbage and Chrome is about equal to both Firefox and Chrome. I've not abandoned Firefox yet, but I'm getting closer every dayl
Posted by: Beverly Kurtin 21 Mar 2009
Go Firefox
I've been using FF for about 8 years and I love it. It's an operating system by itself, easy to customize....and the add-on/ext/themes are programs you can install or remove. I tried the rest (browsers) and went with the best.
Posted by: Batt Ding 21 Mar 2009
firefox is awesome
I got hooked on firefox because a friend recommended it. I love it and will never use IE again!
Posted by: chrissy 21 Mar 2009