Let the Firefox death-watch begin!

by Marc Perton Aug 16th 2005

The latest browser market-share figures from NetApplications have set off a firestorm about the future of Firefox. Seems that the Fox actually lost market share in July, with its overall share slipping from 8.71% to 8.07%. Meanwhile, Internet Explorer was up to 87.2% percent in July, from 86.56% a month earlier. Analysts have been wringing their hands, saying that recent security problems in Firefox could have undermined growth, and that the shift represents a resurgence for Internet Explorer. However, cooler heads have pointed out that a shift of 0.64% in one month hardly means that it's time to start the Firefox death watch (though I couldn't resist the headline). As at least one web site has pointed out, in checking their own logs, both Firefox and IE have shown an increase, at the expense of other alternatives like Opera. However, given the relentlessly upbeat coverage of Firefox over the past few months, the market-share news gives pundits a chance to bash the browser, something they've clearly been itching to do.

Tags: firefox+market+share+internet+explorer, FirefoxMarketShareInternetExplorer

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Nicole Simon said 1:16PM on 8-16-2005

On my blogs I do have an overall usage of Firefox of more than 35%, and that is growing. :)

Jos?le said 3:45PM on 8-16-2005

I can't see that even with the new 'features' that IE 7 has that it's going to lure current Firefox users away. I'm sorry but I will never go back!

Jos?le said 4:59PM on 8-16-2005

I can't see that even with the new 'features' that IE 7 has that it's going to lure current Firefox users away. I'm sorry but I will never go back!

Zoli said 7:43PM on 8-16-2005

Clearly bloggers don’t represent the overall population, but my readers overwhelmingly use FireFox. :-)

LDMA said 7:48AM on 8-17-2005

Perhaps it's merely a case of MS having a bumper month of sales to newbies who have not yet seen the light. It's not like people actually D/L IE

Matthew said 8:14PM on 8-24-2005

people forget that the beta for IE7 is out and first comers who moved to firefox first will be trying out IE7 out just because its new.

?@∆ said 9:52AM on 10-03-2005

why in the hell would anyone START using ie in the first place?

?@∆ said 10:46AM on 10-05-2005

why in the hell would anyone START using ie in the first place?

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