SillyDog701

[Antony]

Firefox's share of the browser market has slipped for the first time since its [sdt=7498]introduction last November[/sdt], according to NetApplications.com. Over July, Internet Explorer regained lost ground, growing from 86.6% (June) to 87.2% (July), whereas Firefox's share shrunk to 8.1 percent from 8.7 percent.

It is also interesting to note that Apple's Safari browser showed modest growth to 2.13 percent, while most other browsers experienced little change.

> Firefox market share slips (TechWorld, 15 August 2005)
> Firefox growth is checked (PC Pro, 15 August 2005)
> Firefox's Market Share Slips; IE Rises (InternetWeek, 12 August 2005)

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/412.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/412.2

[Andrew T.]

Firefox's share of the browser market has slipped for the first time since its [sdt=7498]introduction last November[/sdt], according to NetApplications.com. Over July, Internet Explorer regained lost ground, growing from 86.6% (June) to 87.2% (July), whereas Firefox's share shrunk to 8.1 percent from 8.7 percent.

These statistics only represent a selection of websites whose statistics are aggregated by NetApplications.com, which may or may not be representative of the web as a whole. Also, the decrease was only 0.64 percent during a single month: A tiny change well within the limits of expected fluctuation, and too soon to signal any trends. Finally, this "news" seems contrary to the global trends noted by some other statistics providers: TheCounter.com, by contrast, show a 2% growth for Firefox during the same period.

Even if there clearly was a small decline in Firefox marketshare over the summer, it could be merely attributable to factors like early technology-adopting students going on vacation and a few people trying the lackluster IE 7 beta out.

There is an article refuting this news here.

It is also interesting to note that Apple's Safari browser showed modest growth to 2.13 percent, while most other browsers experienced little change.

Safari will never rise to the popularity level of Firefox because it is only available for the latest version of Mac OS X on Macintosh computers. And it is not entirely dominant even on the Mac platform.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6

[Antony]

These statistics only represent a selection of websites whose statistics are aggregated by NetApplications.com, which may or may not be representative of the web as a whole.

Same as constant increase share mentioned by MozillaZine and other activists.

Even if there clearly was a small decline in Firefox marketshare over the summer, it could be merely attributable to factors like early technology-adopting students going on vacation and a few people trying the lackluster IE 7 beta out.

So it is clear that students represents the major Firefox users?

It is also interesting to note that Apple's Safari browser showed modest growth to 2.13 percent, while most other browsers experienced little change.

Safari will never rise to the popularity level of Firefox because it is only available for the latest version of Mac OS X on Macintosh computers. And it is not entirely dominant even on the Mac platform.

Not entirely dominant on the Mac platform? Well, if you count those whose machines are not capable of running Safari and those who must use open source software....

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/412.6 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/412.2

[DJGM]

These stats that suggest market share for FIrefox has started to slip mean nothing. They came from a
survey of just 40,000 people. That cannot possibly represent the entire number of people that access
the internet. Especially consider that Firefox has now been downloaded over 80,000,000 times!
That figure continues to grow and grow, and could reach 100,000,000 by the end of the year!


So (IMO) Firefox hasn't actually lost any market share, nor has Internet Explorer regained any back.

Let's wait until the next bunch of stats are available from internet statistical research firms such as
the likes of WebSideStory and OneStat, before we start saying "the honeymoon's over" for Firefox.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6

[Andrew T.]

These statistics only represent a selection of websites whose statistics are aggregated by NetApplications.com, which may or may not be representative of the web as a whole.

Same as constant increase share mentioned by MozillaZine and other activists.

All statistics services can and do have their flaws. Even so, I've noticed that the trends on nearly all of them show a general increase for Gecko-based browser marketshare, especially for Mozilla Firefox when it is isolated from other similar browsers.

Even if there clearly was a small decline in Firefox marketshare over the summer, it could be merely attributable to factors like early technology-adopting students going on vacation and a few people trying the lackluster IE 7 beta out.

So it is clear that students represents the major Firefox users?

I did not attempt to imply that the majority of Firefox users are students, merely that this could be a conceivable explanation. And with a statistic fluctuation so trivially small, any factor could be responsible; I might as well draw suggestions out of a hat.

It is also interesting to note that Apple's Safari browser showed modest growth to 2.13 percent, while most other browsers experienced little change.

Safari will never rise to the popularity level of Firefox because it is only available for the latest version of Mac OS X on Macintosh computers. And it is not entirely dominant even on the Mac platform.

Not entirely dominant on the Mac platform? Well, if you count those whose machines are not capable of running Safari and those who must use open source software....

I wouldn't be surprised if many or even most Mac users use Safari, but by no means all do. Internet Explorer isn't entirely dominant on Windows despite the fact that most people use it. Also, not everyone not using Safari is either incapable of running the software or irrationally "must use open source software" no matter what. Browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Camino, Opera, iCab, and others have their advantages and their fans, on the Mac just as much as on other platforms.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716 Firefox/1.0.6

[Andrew T.]

According to this InformationWeek article, "Firefox Regains Market Share Against Internet Explorer" in August. The source of the information? NetApplications, the same site reporting the so-called "loss" the month before.

As I said before, this "loss in marketshare" was nothing more than a routine fluctuation, and certainly not newsworthy. And neither is this "regain in marketshare" I'm posting now for no other reason than to reinforce that very point. Statistics are meaningless if all we do is get over-excited about small deviations from general trends.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win95; en-US; rv:1.8b4) Gecko/20050908 Firefox/1.4