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FireFox Bravely Battles On in the Browser Wars

FireFox Bravely Battles On in the Browser Wars

According to W3 Schools Statistics, FireFox is gaining rapidly over Internet Explorer.

For the first time, FireFox has surpassed Internet Explorer on their visitor stats. W3Schools admits in their statistics notes that they get an eclectic group of visitors to their site, especially those eager to learn CSS and HTML to design their web pages and blogs. This group is more likely to be using a web browser friendly to web designers, but I think it speaks to a growing change in web browser usage overall.

According to W3Schools stats, as of January 2008, FireFox represented 37.2%, Internet Explorer 6 was at 32%, and Internet Explorer 7 had increased from the previous month to 21.2%. I created a chart to show the historical trends from their statistics going back to 2002, which shows the crossovers between the various browsers from Internet Explorer 5 to 6 and then 7, as well as the shift from Mozilla to Firefox.

2008 W3 Schools Browser statistics by Lorelle VanFossen

Another popular technical and web design resource site is WebReference.com which reports that currently FireFox is used by 33.83% of their visitors and all versions of Internet Explorer stand at 40.12% with IE6 at 18.77% and IE7 at 19.72%.

Since the web browser is the bloggers’ path to their blogs, and web designers and WordPress Theme developers must take into account the most popular browsers and their specific eccentricities in design, I thought I’d check out what the various web browser statistics what track the global web browser usage say on the issue of browsers. Do they reflect this same trend?

OneStat reports Mozilla FireFox represents almost 14% of the market share compared to Internet Explorer (all versions) at 83%. They report that Internet Explorer 6 represents 53.95% and IE7 29.06%, showing only a slight change between the two versions over the past year, indicative of the evidence that not as many users switched to the newest version as Microsoft had hoped. FireFox continues to slowly increase its market share, growing by over 1% in the last year by their records.

TheCounter.com Global Statistics for February shows IE7 at 40%, IE6 at 38% and FireFox at 17%. A year ago, the numbers were IE6 at 58%, IE7 at 24%, and FireFox at 11%, a significant growth for FireFox.

ADTECH reports Internet Explorer will continue to see growth, currently at 76.1% market share, but also sees steady growth for FireFox, averaging a half to one and a half percent a month from their current market share globally at 17.9%. What their survey research also shows is an amazing growth and enthusiasm for FireFox in Europe where it represents 30% of the European market. Which also matches W3 Counter, which gives Internet Explorer 61.79% and FireFox 28.39%.

See Also
Firefox Tracking

The release of Internet Explorer 8 is coming soon, which will drop the statistics for IE 6 and 7, but many continue to switch to FireFox as a viable alternative.

As more and more people get into blogging and social networking, they are finding more flexibility, power, and control by using FireFox over Internet Explorer. FireFox offers many add-ons and extensions that help web designers and developers. Bloggers benefit as Firefox helps them blog faster and more efficiently.

I believe in using the right tool for the right job. It took me two years to switch to FireFox and I’ve never looked back.

Since the web browser is your most important blogging tool, take time to learn how it works and how you can make it work better for your blogging.

View Comments (3)
  • That means cumulative IE 6&7 is over 53%, which is nearly double the Firefox stats (which, curiously, aren’t broken down by version).

    I’m a die-hard Firefox user, but that doesn’t mean I like the facts warped in Firefox’s favor.

  • @Travis Seitler:

    Yes it does mean that, which is what is stated. It’s getting harder to find resources which break out the specific browsers, which makes these stats interesting. Firefox compared individually to the separate browsers still scored higher than the other two Internet Explorer versions, though not combined. If you want to combine them, fine, but the users aren’t using both versions of Internet Explorer at the same time to view the same site. :D

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