Firefox downloads hit one billion mark
The browser wars were once considered over, but the news that Firefox has been downloaded a billion times tells a different story.
06 August 2009
With the number of computers worldwide estimated at a billion, that's one download for each machine. Of course, the Firefox figures are for all versions of Firefox, presumably including incremental versions, so the number is nowhere near that high.
That said, Firefox now holds a significant market share. According to Statcounter Global Stats, Firefox holds 28.3% market share, while Internet Explorer - still comfortably in the lead - holds 63.47%. Internet Explorer is still by far and away the market leader, but has suffered a big drop from being around 90% at its peak.
What's especially interesting is if you look at the ongoing trend: Internet Explorer is slowly - but steadily - losing marketing share, while Firefox is slowly gaining.
It was certainly a mistake for Microsoft to park the development of Internet Explorer at version 6, as it opened up the far greater possibility of competition - which is something that Firefox has successfully exploited.
And yet there was competition around before Firefox - in the shape of good old Opera and Netscape Navigator. But Navigator was in terminal decline, and - despite being technically excellent - Opera has never risen to be a real contender in terms of market share. So why did Firefox gain so much popularity so quickly?
Part of the answer has to be the website development community's embracing of Firefox. First, Firefox was more standards-compliant than Internet Explorer 6, which rendered a lot of XTML/CSS very problematically. For a developer, Firefox provided a more reliable baseline product to work with. But also, Firefox had a plug-in architecture - and it wasn't long before we saw the release of many free and useful (some would say essential) tools to help with website development. Yes, the website development community is a small one, but it's a trusted one - so the recommendation of 'which browser do you use' went a long way, seeing Firefox rippling out to many users.
Another key reason was security. Internet Explorer was plagued with bad publicity about security issues - and, since development was parked, these were not getting fixed fast enough. At the time, Firefox represented a better option - partly because it was more secure, but partly because it was new. New software has fewer people targeting it, so less security news equals 'more secure'.
And, Firefox was cross-platforms, so that those who used Windows at work, and a Mac or Linux at home, could use the same browser all the time. The best we got from Internet Explorer was its Mac version (Internet Explorer 5/5.5) which was deplorably bad - far worse than the PC version. (Essentially, it added up the elements of the CSS box model in completely the wrong way, so a separate style sheet was needed to accommodate it.)
It's hard to not feel sorry for Opera, because - even at the time - all three of these things were true of Opera too. It had fewer in-the-wild security issues, it was cross-platform, was more standards compliant than Internet Explorer - and it was much faster.
Until 2000 Opera had to be paid for while Internet Explorer was free (in 2000, Opera launched its first free version, which at that time carried advertisements - so not quite the 'real thing'). Crucially, and now controversially in some places, Internet Explorer was installed by default on Windows. With Windows by far and away the most popular operating system, it really didn't make much difference how good the competition was, as long as Internet Explorer was good enough.
Until Firefox came along. It was free, cross-platform, built by 'everyone', secure, extensible - and, best of all, recommended by the bloke next door who developed websites and that IT girl who works at the big bank down the road.
It's estimated that there are now 300 million Firefox users (a jump from 175 million last year). But let's put things in perspective - Internet Explorer 8 alone, in its first four months of availability, was downloaded 200 million times. And, unlike Firefox's stats, Microsoft's don't include bug fixes and updates.
The competition has been good - Microsoft took Internet Explorer 6 off ice, and delivered a so-so Internet Explorer 7 and then a rather good Internet Explorer 8. Apple's Safari, once Mac only, is now available on Windows and is also a pretty good browser. Opera continues to improve and is sadly overlooked and wrongly underrated. Google's decided to enter the fray, with Chrome, which is a very good version one product, although it's only available on the PC at the moment. (Firefox and Opera remain the best cross-browser options, hell will probably freeze over before Internet Explorer is ported to Linux, and it's very doubtful that Safari will go beyond its Mac and PC status.)
Now really is a good time to try another browser. There's still a large part of the world on Internet Explorer 6, amazing when you consider how vulnerable it is (yet you are in good company, even the UK's Ministry of Defence is sticking with it for now, despite their concerns over its security).
Internet Explorer 8 is a massive improvement, and very much worth the download, although in use it Hoovers up more system resources than much of the competition. Firefox still looks a bit - well, Noddy - but since you can easily apply a visual theme to it, you can make it look a whole lot better very quickly. Safari has some very nice features and shows that someone is thinking about browsing in a slightly different way for once. Chrome is neat - it drops the bloat of other products and provides a very nippy browsing experience. Opera is very good indeed, it's a solid standards-compliant browser that has some useful features you'll soon miss if you were to switch back after using it for some weeks.
With all of this choice, perhaps the only mistake is to not at least take a look around. Who knows, you could contribute to Firefox's second billion downloads.
