Firefox Hits Landmark 1 Billion Downloads, Seizes 32 Percent of the Market

[Android1]

Can the Firefox juggernaut be stopped? I would really hate if it took IE's place, for I would rather see closer competition between the web browsers.

Thanks to a strong release of Firefox 3.5, with millions of copies download in under a day, Mozilla has reached a major landmark in its quest to bring a free third-party full-standards browser to the masses. Firefox reached 1 billion downloads on Friday.

The impressive figure encompasses all downloads of the browser since its release in 2004. More interestingly, W3Schools.com, an internet research firm, is reporting Firefox to have seized 47.9 percent of the market, jumping ahead of Internet Explorer, which it says has a combined marketshare of 39.4 percent for versions 6, 7, and 8.

More conservative StatCounter, another research firm, puts Mozilla's marketshare at 32 percent, while putting Internet Explorer's at just about 60 percent. Both firms' figures are suspect due to inherent difficulties in determining true browser marketshare. Most firms collect metrics from a broad array of sites, but even collecting from as many as 1,000 sites two firms may show great differences in market pictures, due in part to different kinds of user populations for their surveyed sites. Furthermore, W3School's analysis is mostly of tech-related websites, which are visited more by the kinds of users who would use alternative browsers at a higher rate.

Source: DailyTech

[Razeus]

Whoa!!

Good job FF users out there. It's my standard and I refused to use anything else on my Mac.

I'm calling shens on the 50% market share however. I pin it close to the 30% I do believe that IE is in some trouble though.

[Android1]

Whoa!!

Good job FF users out there. It's my standard and I refused to use anything else on my Mac.

I'm calling shens on the 50% market share however. I pin it close to the 30% I do believe that IE is in some trouble though.

Opera is my absolute favorite, but Firefox is very good, too. In fact, I am using v3.0.12 right now, for I am not on my personal PC at the moment (yes, saying personal PC is redundant).

[Skynet]

I like to think of Firefox as the revenge of Netscape.

[javiermq]

Opera is my absolute favorite, but Firefox is very good, too. In fact, I am using v3.0.12 right now, for I am not on my personal PC at the moment (yes, saying personal PC is redundant).

Awesome, another Opera fan. I love opera, its the best browser, wonder why it doesnt get more market share.

[metroidfox]

Awesome, another Opera fan. I love opera, its the best browser, wonder why it doesnt get more market share.

I used to be a hardcore Opera user. Moved to Chrome and then Firefox.

[Android1]

I used to be a hardcore Opera user. Moved to Chrome and then Firefox.

Why are you sad? Were you forced to stop using Opera due to some unsolvable issue?

[metroidfox]

Why are you sad? Were you forced to stop using Opera due to some unsolvable issue?

Well, I feel that version 9 took the browser in a step away from what it had always been: tight and fast. I feel version 9 made the browser considerably laggier, didn't bring the browser up to speed with others, plus I was tired of sites not working with Opera. Even now, I still love how tight all the features are packed together. However Firefox has caught up: version 3 introduced the 'search as you type' feature from Opera, and I have an addon which gives me all my mouse gestures. The FF 3 interface also isn't ugly as ass.

Opera 10 is a step in the right direction, but it still retains compatibility issues. Now with Firefox 3.5 in the game, Opera's speed doesn't quite match up, and Firefox just works with everything.

It seems that Opera is playing the catch up game now.

[MaxSt]

I'm calling shens on the 50% market share however.

Well, it could be for "tech-related websites"...
But I would prefer to see stats for specific popular sites.
Like what browsers people use to visit engadget, majorgeeks, etc?

[javiermq]

Well, I feel that version 9 took the browser in a step away from what it had always been: tight and fast. I feel version 9 made the browser considerably laggier, didn't bring the browser up to speed with others, plus I was tired of sites not working with Opera. Even now, I still love how tight all the features are packed together. However Firefox has caught up: version 3 introduced the 'search as you type' feature from Opera, and I have an addon which gives me all my mouse gestures. The FF 3 interface also isn't ugly as ass.

Opera 10 is a step in the right direction, but it still retains compatibility issues. Now with Firefox 3.5 in the game, Opera's speed doesn't quite match up, and Firefox just works with everything.

It seems that Opera is playing the catch up game now.

Opera 9 releases still seem faster than firefox 3.5 which has been big and sluggish for a long while now. Dont know what you mean.