Firefox 3.5 has become the most popular browser, finally wresting the lead away from industry behemoth Internet Explorer 7 according to StatCounter's latest figures.
StatCounter shows that a huge decline in IE7 use – as people move over to the more modern IE8 – combined with a big rise in Firefox 3.5 that has finally caused a change at the top of the browser leader board.
However, lest the anti-Microsoft brigade get too excited, it should be pointed out that the combined weight of IE6, IE7 and IE8 far outweighs Mozilla's Firefox, which pushed users much more heavily to the latest version.
Delayed
There was a time back in June that Firefox 3.0 looked set to overhaul IE7, but the arrival of 3.5 pushed things back, as early adopters jumped to the new browser.
The uptake of IE8, Microsoft's latest and, to be fair, greatest browser to date, has been steady, but has flattened through December, whereas IE7 has gone from a 43 per cent market share at the beginning of the year to just 21 per cent now.
Microsoft's overall market share has declined over the year, but this is due to a steady decline (23 per cent to 13 per cent) in the use of the terrible IE6 browser that has left the company with a whole host of legacy issues.
It should be noted that StatCounter does not list Google's Chrome browser in the list, although the 'other' category has experienced a significant rise.
Via Mashable
Your comments (5) Click to add a new comment
serendipity
December 21st 2009
5. @lewchenko
IE8 is really really quick on my PC and no problems with the site you mentioned (except its of no interest to me whatsoever :-). Perhaps its your AV package or maybe your IE8 setup. For instance, did you have smartfilter turned on?
Nothing wrong with FF but IE8 suits my needs just fine.
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lewchenko
December 21st 2009
4. IE8 seems incredibly slow on certain websites.. and relly slow scrolling on sites that have a lot of embedded video links. Try www.shacknews.com to see what I mean (compare both IE and FF and you be the judge). I tried to use it with Win7, but gave up. Too many issues with it.
So now Im on Firefox 3.5.6 on Win7 and its been the best browser/OS combination Ive used in a long time.
I cant comment on how it works on Linux (or Mac), but on Win7 PC ... FF rocks.
I tried Chrome as well... but it seemed quite limited in terms of customisation options.. e.g. no option to autodelete history at the end of a session.
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leneyoyo
December 21st 2009
3. Drat opera is at the very bottom! Well don't care I really like it... FF really ****** me off, I mean 5 (timed) minutes loading up and become responsive every first run on my laptop is just inexcusable! But opera runs fast and responsive on my linux laptop. Still happy to see that dreadful IE losing share. :)
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roberto
December 21st 2009
2. Its a great browser,i se it daily,but i wish it used less RAM...
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calcio
December 21st 2009
1. Yay for Firefox
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