digg

Join DiggAbout

Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.

All the rage in Europe: Firefox marketshare climbs higher

arstechnica.com — Month by month, Firefox continues to make gains in Europe, where the browser approaches a 50% marketshare in some countries, and shows stronger use on weekends, when people get to use the browser of their choice.

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • luchid, on 04/28/2008, -11/+87I hope IE (even 7 and 8) dies a quick but very painful death. It won't be missed.
    • schestowitz, on 04/28/2008, -14/+3It'll be missing proper compliance with Web standards and introduce more de facto ones like XAML. The EC investigates this.
    • Darkhacker, on 04/28/2008, -7/+6It honestly wouldn't surprise me if later down the line Microsoft used the open source WebKit for Internet Explorer. They would obviously make modifications and although people might say "hell would freeze over before that happens", stranger things have happened. Apple going to Intel was a big surprise and IE8 passing ACID2 was as well. They can still retain the IE branding while switching to another rendering engine. I don't think they'd ever go with Gecko though because of all the Mozilla branding around it. Given Opera's accusations against MS for violating anti-trust laws, I think licensing Presto from them is very unlikely. Switching to WebKit, with modifications to distinguish itself from Apple, seems to be the most likely possibility. That is, if they decide to switch and not just stick with Trident.
    • SuperWinner, on 04/28/2008, -4/+24On all the windows machines at my office we have not a single microsoft product running, other than windows itself. We use firefox, Thunderbird with Lightning for email and calendaring, openoffice does all our word processing and spreadsheeting, 7zip for archiving, etc etc. We do still have one guy in the office who insists on using Outlook 2000, but since the IT department does not spend money to get new versions of Office, (since you cannot get Outlook separately), he is stuck with that old version of Outlook. Meanwhile the rest of us thunderbird users get access to free addons which he would have to pay to get in Outlook, its funny to watch him squirm when we all get a cool new addon.
      I know our office may be ahead of the corporate curve a little, but if we are any indication, I think a trend is forming of people and businesses that do not want to wait 5 years for MS to release a new version of something, only to find that the old version was better and the new version has no new features, other than more 3rd party extensibility so we can "buy" extras that would be free if we didn't use MS products.
      • Claude1971, on 04/28/2008, -16/+6small office right? you and the wife, maybe brother hank?
      • grimward, on 04/28/2008, -9/+5Reply button ftw... damnit! To Claude1971:
        I'm thinking that way too, probably without an AD structure too, and no need for client/mail/GCA integration which means they can't be too efficient when it comes to locating departments.
      • freexe, on 04/28/2008, -1/+14How long are you planning on sticking with Windows for? Do you have any plans on moving to Linux?
      • SuperWinner, on 04/28/2008, -2/+10The IT guys have Ubuntu on all their machines, they are working on making the desktop seem as much like windows as possible so if they do make a transition, its easy for the user to find things. Ubuntu 8 apparently makes the desktop very flexible, so windows may be gone completely soon.
        I showed some of the comments to the it guys and theiy laughed, they said its amazing people think MS software is the only way to go for large scale enterprise, pure brainwashing.
        • grimward, on 04/28/2008, -2/+2If you want customer relations and internal company communication to flow smoothly , you have to use some kind of DIT system to manage your clients security permissions/client data/adress book information, sure linux works, but quickly gets unanagable fast as it doesn't have the flexibility that a true DIT provides.

          But, of course it's all dependent on how critical your IT section is, if you're just a small company under 100 employees and none are really using their desktop OS for anything other than calc, a notepad app and possibly some openoffice stuff, I can see why you wouldn't need a DIT.

          But, for the rest of the corporate world that actually needs their IT system to provide accurate on demand information and run specialized business applications and database access software, you can't possibly hope to keep tabs on all that with any linux based solution. But, just in the interest of progress, if your IT guys have stumbled upon something that could knit together +100 clients, do share it with the rest of us, because I'm sure I'm not the only one whose been waiting for the linux camp to put out their version of an AD structure.
        • init100, on 04/28/2008, -0/+2@grimward

          What is a DIT? I guess that DIT is some generic term for the functionality that AD and group policies provide. On our server cluster, we do that with openldap for user account information, NFS for home directories (although I had preferred AFS) and puppet for client configuration information. Sure, puppet does not have a fancy GUI, but the language is not very hard to learn.

          And I cannot really understand why this wouldn't work for client systems too.
          • grimward, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1DIT = Directory Information Tree, the whole catalogue service, so you were spot on!
            However, when we tried using openldap and samba 3.0 (I think, can't really remember, was a while back) to create a similar enviroment, we ran into multiple problems with client settings persistance, and the service was very unstable on the machines we tried running them on, plus it lacked the coherence that AD provided for us at the time. So we pretty much deduced that it was an interesting development, but that it had way too many kinks left to work out before being suitable for sharp deployment. However, I will say this, with the new version of samba coming out .. things might be different, but still.. the system we put up left much to be desired in terms of functionality.
      • theOster, on 04/28/2008, -2/+2why bother installing an app for handling archiving when winxp will do this natively? what do you guys use for mobile mail? also, what kind of office is it? some people still need windows for things like AutoCAD (and i would love to see emulation running in a production environment, yeah right)

        also, how many IT guys? I'm currently handling an 80 person firm on my own...i actually don't mean to be an ass, but the OP seemed to get a lot of enjoyment out of "the outlook user" squirming at OSS...
        • theaceoffire, on 04/28/2008, -0/+2I am pretty sure that if they had a windows only major program, the IT department would test it before moving to Ubuntu.
    • SmellyGeekBoy, on 04/28/2008, -0/+4Nah... Firefox needs the competition. Don't want the browser market to stagnate like it did in the IE6 era! It was only 3 years or so ago... Has everyone forgotten the lessons of the past already!? ;P
      • theaceoffire, on 04/28/2008, -1/+3I don't mind competition, as long as all competition follow the damn standards.
    • Incoming9000, on 04/28/2008, -0/+3Unfortunately this rapid climb in market share make FF more tempting to hackers. In fact there are clear signs that hackers are already developing malware that takes advantage of FF flaws. Fortunately for FF, being open source means it can have it's bugs fixed faster than IE but it shows that it's not good for anyone if FF becomes as dominant as IE once was. Bottom line, I don't believe the death of IE will be a good thing for anyone. FF, IE, Opera, Safari, all have their place in the digital world. Remember: competition is good, dominance isn't.
  • prophetpimp, on 04/28/2008, -10/+70Death to IE. All Hail Firefox.

    Opera/Safari Hailing is ok too.
    • Rotzooi, on 04/28/2008, -8/+32No, Safari is not ok. The rest are, though.
      • falafelkiosken, on 04/28/2008, -13/+4No, Opera is not ok. The rest are, though.
      • SmellyGeekBoy, on 04/28/2008, -1/+14I'm sitting here writing this on a Mac, and even I'm not stupid enough to believe that Safari is nything other than a tool for downloading Firefox (or Opera!).
    • doshindude, on 04/28/2008, -16/+5No, not Opera either.
    • wukillabee, on 04/28/2008, -14/+6yeah ***** safari, its a piece of *****
      • alanr19, on 04/28/2008, -6/+11While Safari for windows does indeed suck the *****, on mac i hear tell it kicks ass. 2nd only to Firefox 3b5 in standards compliance.

        It has yet to be targeted by hackers in any serious way though.
    • bowe, on 04/28/2008, -0/+13What the hell is this ***** about Apple pushing Safari out through Itunes updates? Isn't that the type of ***** that they were up in arms about microsoft doing.
      To download quicktime, they make you to download itunes, and now they also make you download safari?
    • MWeather, on 04/29/2008, -2/+1Microsoft is a convicted monopoly. It's illegal for them to leverage their monopoly in one market to gain advantage in another. iTunes isn't a monopoly any more than Walmart is, so they can leverage all they want. They're big and they suck, but that's not illegal.
  • LANjackal, on 04/28/2008, -0/+17IE won't die any more than Konqueror will die. MS will still develop for it as it doesn't make sense to ship an OS without a browser, which just may be the single most important app on any desktop these days.

    HOWEVER

    It's very likely that IE's use as the default browser for most people will continue to decline aggressively. FF could really take the cake if Mozilla developed tools for managing FF installations on corporate networks similar to what MS has for IE, but everything I've read suggests that's nowhere near reality
  • killbert24, on 04/28/2008, -5/+20The release of Firefox 3 looms closer and closer with every minute that passes.
    • bedake, on 04/28/2008, -1/+10So does Firefox 6, way to state the obvious.
      • Dustmuffins, on 04/28/2008, -0/+7Oh, I can't wait for FF 6!
        • glinsvad, on 04/28/2008, -0/+10Considering the speed of the current release cycle, FF 6 will probably feature an antigravity module...
  • wukillabee, on 04/28/2008, -11/+4if only opera had adblock plus, with continued filterlist/app updates.. it would be the best browser..
    • BXRWXR, on 04/28/2008, -3/+17No it wouldn't.
      • TypeEE, on 04/28/2008, -2/+4I concur, you have one if, I have more if than you do. If there are so many ifs, why not FF?
        • PotentChr0nic, on 04/28/2008, -5/+0FAIL
        • jerrycan, on 04/28/2008, -1/+1Lamont, ya big dummy!
          • PotentChr0nic, on 04/28/2008, -3/+0Learn how to spell first.
            Also, before using words you heard somewhere, make sure you know what they mean.
            http://www.answers.com/topic/lament
          • jerrycan, on 04/29/2008, -0/+1PotentChr0nic, ya big dummy.....Please look up "Sanford and Son".
            And I lament your ignorance...
          • PotentChr0nic, on 05/04/2008, -0/+0wow i am truly impressed by your knowledge of meaningless pop culture. It's what gives losers like you a purpose in life.
      • mijelh, on 04/28/2008, -1/+6I love this kind of elaborated, methodical replies so usually found on digg.
        Anyway, I agree with the fact that opera wouldn't be as good as firefox because:
        a) Memory usage optimization, the typical stronghold of Opera, seems to be surpassed by Firefox (comparing opera 9.5 vs Firefox 3, both are the last, unfinished version of the browser) http://avencius.nl/content/firefox-3-vs-opera-950- ...
        b)Firefox is free software
  • nickcozy, on 04/28/2008, -4/+13In europe firefox is benifitting from the antitrust law suit and billion euro fine on microsoft.But 75-78% world internet population still uses IE.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_br ...
    • ohmahgawd, on 04/28/2008, -1/+8Still, this does remind me of the time Netscape Navigator had 85% of the share, and IE was barely existing. 5 years later Netscape Navigator was almost completely gone. I doubt IE will ever completely vanish, since it is sent with windows, but FF's share is going to continue creeping up.
    • alanr19, on 04/28/2008, -1/+9Don't blame the law. It was there before IE was even invented. MS knew the rules but dropped the ball on this one.

      So more accurately: Firefox is benefiting from Microsoft's incompetence.
    • mijelh, on 04/28/2008, -0/+2In fact, in Europe -Citizens- are benefiting from the antitrust law, as it's supposed to be. Microsoft/IE is just a collateral victim
      Other regions don't seem to be so lucky in that aspect.
      • zeabu, on 04/28/2008, -0/+4They are less lucky, but lucky for them this happenes in Europe. We using FF makes sure FF keeps on existing, and when it grows some more, pages will comply more with standards, which in the end is more important than FF being the number one browser. Everyone picks fruits.
  • stutimandal, on 04/28/2008, -2/+17I have a small website, but about 52% people use Firefox for coming to my website. It is a non-technical website on poetry. Hope the flame remains alive.
    • derekJAB, on 04/28/2008, -10/+3Give us the address so we can flatten it :-)
      • WhereAmI, on 04/28/2008, -1/+5By that you mean troll.
        • derekJAB, on 04/28/2008, -0/+4Not really. I actually dugg up the guy.

          Mine was supposed to be a wry comment on the digg effect and his wisdom in not advertising.

          Whoosh!
    • borez, on 04/28/2008, -0/+13We'll done for mentioning your own site without blatantly advertising it.
  • citizen782, on 04/28/2008, -2/+25I don't care if IE dies. I just want all the developers of forward facing services (who work for i.e. Banks etc.) and develop exclusively for IE to die. Developing for "the majority" isn't good enough.
  • louiebaur, on 04/28/2008, -4/+3To bad for IE long live firefox
    • pukiman, on 04/28/2008, -1/+6Why it's too bad for IE? It's not like Microsoft making any money out of it, or something.
      It's just a tool that available on clean Windows install, that lets you get onto the Internet (and download Firefox, or what ever).
      • aidave, on 04/28/2008, -3/+1Really, that's all IE is, just a tool to get on the internet? Then why are there special sites that only run on IE? Its all about getting people dependent on using their technology.
  • davidkeithjones, on 04/28/2008, -6/+7Its not like MS is making any money off of browsers anyway. As long as IE provides me with Windows updates it won't get uninstalled.
    • pongx, on 04/28/2008, -5/+12Microsoft makes plenty of money from their browser, just by having the default search go to Live.com makes them millions. Could make them billions if their search engine wasn't so terrible.
      • pukiman, on 04/28/2008, -3/+10You have the option to select your default search engine on the first startup of the browser. You don't have to select live.com
        • Borgcube, on 04/28/2008, -2/+8Yeah, but a lot of people never do change it, they just think it should be that way
        • zeabu, on 04/28/2008, -0/+4Well, it has been selected for you, as is the browser when you install ms. For you and me, that's whatever, for mum, dad, granmother, granfather, sister, the hot chick working in Wallmart, that's not. They can read the invisible-to-us "choose something else and you will die a slow and painfully death." behind the option.
  • alanr19, on 04/28/2008, -0/+23Living in Europe myself i have to say that the only person I know who uses IE is my boss, and he's a numb-nuts.

    Even dear old gran uses firefox.
    • grimward, on 04/28/2008, -0/+14Yeah, it's amazing that the higher on the corporate importance scale you go, the less IT intelligence you find. It's sort of like a dilbert principle, but with geekdom :P
  • Owwmykneecap, on 04/28/2008, -0/+21Go Ireland 30% compared to the UKs 19.1%!
    • alanr19, on 04/28/2008, -0/+6Yup here in good ol' Ireland IE has hit the skids. Its partly due to Irish banks (AIB, BoI and others) giving certain warnings against IE usage and certain government websites too.
  • chrisking1981, on 04/28/2008, -9/+1Most of my websites using firefox, think about 60 percent. Just because IE is part of windows i think.
    • falafelkiosken, on 04/28/2008, -0/+12do your websites surf the internet?
      • 4321234, on 04/28/2008, -2/+1Website ARE internets. Sheesh! At least 60%.
  • pigfister, on 04/28/2008, -7/+10whats the difference?

    Firefox = open source and allows ppl to submit mods for FREE
    IE = locked propertarian malware that if you want an add on you have to pay.
    • surKaz, on 04/28/2008, -0/+4Yeah, thanks.. I'll be honest. I never really fully understood the differences. .(technical ones..).
      I did notice better compatiblity, ease of use and add-ons and stuff with FireFox tho..
      Please enlighten on technical side?.. (and maybe bury.)
      • leerayIG88, on 04/28/2008, -2/+2I eat babies. I hope that's technical.
      • theaceoffire, on 04/28/2008, -0/+2The new Firefox (currently 3 beta 5) is faster, smaller, memory efficient, and has all kinds of neat features (Searchable bookmarks in a database, built in spell checking and great tab support, lots of plugins to add functionality).
    • VargVikernes, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1Most people don't give a ***** if the software they use is closed or open source (myself included). What we want is software that works, and Firefox just works better. I don't know how to explain it, but to me Firefox feels much better than IE. And although I have a huge list of things I don't like in FF; like how it locks up my entire PC for 10 seconds when opening a Digg page with 200+ comments, or the jerky scrolling, or the amount of RAM it eats up on my machine, etc... - it's still preferred over IE here anytime. Overall, including the user experience, features, the look,... it's just a better browser.
    • FlimBlimmer, on 04/28/2008, -0/+0proprietary
  • borez, on 04/28/2008, -1/+6As much as I love Forefox, after the last update it ain't half crashing my mac a lot. It's the only time I've ever seen an OSX machine actually freeze solid.

    Still not switching back to Safari though

    Roll on FF3
    • pault107, on 04/28/2008, -0/+1I love Firefox but I've been having a lot of issues with it recently. Certain sites, ahem Digg/Netvibes, cause major slow downs on my system (XP). I open up Task Manager and I see FF taking up 400Mb 50% CPU. WTF?

      It breaks my heart to open up IE.
  • enruff, on 04/28/2008, -1/+6I really dont see anyone around me who is using IE /Bulgaria,Europe/ . Just girls and people that dont use computer often . I use Opera as primary and Firefox as secondary browser .
  • WhereAmI, on 04/28/2008, -3/+5Well the tech people know not to use IE, so its up to us now to convert our parents and our grandparents to use Firefox. I even got my parents and grandparents using Thunderbird.
    • momsshizzle, on 04/28/2008, -1/+4You are obviously not a high level tech.
  • rob3, on 04/28/2008, -0/+2http://www.xitimonitor.com/en-us/browsers-baromete ...
    In English, from the correct website (not a crappy google translation) :P
  • novenator, on 04/28/2008, -2/+8go Firefox! you have made the web an entirely more enjoyable experience for me. Plus, I love the customizable add-ons (Adblock primarily, but downloadthis, forecastfox, etc. too).
  • gothicform, on 04/28/2008, -3/+2Hmmm I'm not convinced. My websites have largely European users and Firefox + Mozilla is only on about 15%. Nothing would make me happier but I don't see their market share soaring like these reports keep saying.
    • TheHim, on 04/28/2008, -0/+2Depends on your target audience. I have several domains with different content and the browser stats vary greatly. On one site, the various FF versions amount to a good 70% together, very young user group. On another side it's about 20-30%, still surprisingly high (Germany).

      Whenever i get traffic from Japan and China though, i disappointingly observe IE6 and respectively IE5 (!) usage rise drastically. Terrible.
  • Jarasmen, on 04/28/2008, -1/+5The only thing I care about atm is working png transparency. Use what you want, just not IE6 (or older).
  • akkibaba, on 04/28/2008, -2/+4Not only does Firefox kick massive amounts of ass on the technical side, it's an amazing poster child for Free Software in general. Makes me love it all the more.
  • zantos420, on 04/28/2008, -1/+7as a web developer, i can only hope IE goes away for good.
    • momsshizzle, on 04/28/2008, -3/+1Looks like you'll need a new line of work soon then.
    • swisstone, on 04/28/2008, -0/+2as a human being, i can only hope IE goes away for good.
  • NJank, on 04/28/2008, -6/+1Doesn't market imply that people are buying something? How is "user's choice of which free product to use" a market?
  • Chrelion, on 04/28/2008, -2/+3The fewer browser with the ability to block ads, the better for us. I want my free content to last, while I don't see any of the annoying parts of the web. Boo to Firefox's success, I say. Keep it secret, keep it hidden. Let others suffer the ugly parts of the net.
  • b0rg, on 04/28/2008, -0/+2I'm hesitant to give it a digg only because the more people use firefox... the harder that ***** like ***** will work to make it look like internet exploder.
    /likes foxefox
    //forgets how horrible the web looks without adblock plus.
  • LOVEANDEQUALITY, on 04/28/2008, -7/+4FIRE FOX IS COOL I GOT IT FF3 FOR MAC! ALSO SOME SITES DONT WORK WITH MY SAFARI SO FIRE FOX 3 WORKS WITH EVERYTHING SO FAR!

    BUT I STILL RUN SAFARI BECAUSE IT LOOKS PRETTY!

    BUT YEA WEN I GET MY NEW LAPTOP IM GOING TO HAVE UBUNTU ON IT SO FF3 WILL BE MY CHOICE!
    • picpak, on 04/28/2008, -0/+5Dugg for even having your username capitalized.
    • ptFoe, on 04/28/2008, -0/+2The Caps Lock key doesn't work on some sites too
  • lilmoder, on 04/28/2008, -3/+1Go Opera! (Try it b4 say that it's a sh*t and FF is ultimate browser or something..)
  • 8270369, on 04/28/2008, -0/+0The funny thing about this is the vast vast majority of people could not give a *****.
  • KlipschFan, on 04/29/2008, -0/+2ALL HAIL ICE WEASEL!
  • bootup, on 04/29/2008, -0/+1All I do is talk to customers about computer issues all day every day. I need to make more of an effort to explain the dangers of using Internet Explorer and tell them how to get Firefox. Of course the whole reason I'm missing the Firefox sale is cause I'm setting people up to sell them Ubuntu. If I fix Microsoft Windows for them it is a tad more difficult to sell them freedom. Firefox might be free, but I'd prefer selling them the complete package where feasible.
  • polko, on 05/01/2008, -0/+0firefox rulaaz!!
  • Lemon, on 05/07/2008, -0/+1Put your hand up if you've never heard of Andorra.
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.