AfterDawn: Tech news

Internet Explorer browser market share declines again

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 02 Feb 2009 8:46 User comments (24)

Internet Explorer browser market share declines again Marking the seventh consecutive month it has done so, the Internet Explorer browser has lost even more market share to its competitors Firefox, Safari and Chrome.
Internet Explorer dropped to 67.55 percent of global browser market share, down from 68.15 percent at the end of December and down from 77 percent at the beginning of 2008.

Firefox moved up subtly to 21.53 percent, Safari jumped higher to 8.29 percent, and the four month old Google Chrome browser jumped to 1.12 percent



The browser has lost a massive amount of market share over the past few years, falling from its peak of 94.43 percent in 2003.

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24 user comments

12.2.2009 21:09

Inb4FFanboys

22.2.2009 21:10

No surprise there! I used to only use IE but when I found out about Firefox (couple years ago) I never looked back. I keep hearing that people are constantly having problems with IE, maybe Microsoft made IE8 better but they will never achieve their high ratings again!

32.2.2009 21:47

I have used Chrome since it's very first publicly-available download.

It's great but without some add-ons I love in Firefox, such as Ad-Block Plus and DownThemAll!, I occasionally go back to it when I surf a ad-saturated site or want to download a huge file.

Other than that I always use Chrome, it's quicker on my PC than Firefox and I enjoy that each tab has it's own process. Firefox might be able to do that but I am not sure how if it can.

42.2.2009 22:08

Originally posted by Pop_Smith:
I have used Chrome since it's very first publicly-available download.

It's great but without some add-ons I love in Firefox, such as Ad-Block Plus and DownThemAll!, I occasionally go back to it when I surf a ad-saturated site or want to download a huge file.

Other than that I always use Chrome, it's quicker on my PC than Firefox and I enjoy that each tab has it's own process. Firefox might be able to do that but I am not sure how if it can.
Use TabMixPlus :-D

52.2.2009 22:57

I prefer Firefox.

62.2.2009 22:59

Ever since Firefox came out I've only used it for my browsing. Unfortunately some sites like for my schooling, require me to use IE, I hate that. Even the User Switcher doesn't help out :(

73.2.2009 00:25

Originally posted by kubapolak:
No surprise there! I used to only use IE but when I found out about Firefox (couple years ago) I never looked back. I keep hearing that people are constantly having problems with IE, maybe Microsoft made IE8 better but they will never achieve their high ratings again!
Doubt that, my dad tried IE8 beta and had to reinstall windows again.

Just like others, I used firefox once and never looked back. I'll have to give chrome a try one of these days but I don't see what's wrong with FF that it can do better. Though to be fair I said the same thing about IE6 back in the day.

83.2.2009 00:42
jony218
Inactive

One thing almost everyone in the virus/spyware section of this forum have in common is that they are all diehard internet explorer users. I take my hat off to them. I also use to be one of them, but it can get expensive buying all the adblockers/antispyware/homepage protectore/etc etc. The only thing I miss from internet explorer was the sound it made when I clicked on a link.

93.2.2009 01:43

If your main concern isn't memory, things like noscripts / adblockplus / all the other add-ons make firefox an extremely attractive proposition. I remember getting most of the people I know to switch via word-of-mouth.

Having more than 20% of the marketshare is amazing. What a win for open source.

103.2.2009 03:42

Originally posted by DVDBack23:
Use TabMixPlus :-D
Ah, thanks for letting me know about that. I will check it more in-depth tomorrow and see how I like it. :-)

Peace

113.2.2009 06:46

I've been using Firefox for a few years now (since version 1.4 if I remember correctly) and I never had the need to go back to IE. In fact I use Ubuntu now and it has Firefox preinstalled. I love Firefox's add-on system, and it's reliability. But there is a fact...it's NOT the best browser out there. For me it is, but what works for me, doesn't necessarily work for others. The perfect web browser hasn't been invented yet...and IE is one of the worst attempts...lol! IE kept crashing and getting bugs, crashes, and so on. Not to mention that it has some vulnerabilities that allow hacker to skip merrily in your computer (so do other browsers, but what you don't know, doesn't hurt you. Someone made a public statement a few months ago about a threat that IE made possible...so I really don't want to experiment that).

I'm also waiting for Chrome to come out for Linux. I don't want to use the Windows version, even on Wine...

123.2.2009 08:31

I downloaded Chrome when it was first available. It was OK, but nothing special. However, it made me nervous because SOMETHING during the install of it accessed all my physical hard drives and I don't like Google's switch to using a background updater and online-only installs of some of their apps. I'll stick w/ Firefox for the foreseeable future.

133.2.2009 08:59

i also use firefox explorer had too many erros and must close incidents.

143.2.2009 11:00
Javan39
Inactive

I like the IE 8 beta so far but just used it to see if it was any good. MS just is taking all the good things about firefox and implementing it into IE but I like firefox better. Some sites still dont work very well in Firefox (no clue why programmers wouldnt program for firefox) so for those few sites i use IE but its very rare a site wont work in firefox.

153.2.2009 13:24

i use firefox. about 6 months ago i hada problem with IE6 would not allow me to watch vids all of a sudden tried to download the new flash downloaded fine but it was aprob with IE6 - tried 7 and it caused a few probs on my pc so afreind downloaded firefox and ive not looked back since ive had add ons like IE coz some sites i can only use IE - have no idea why but have the colour tabs so i can differenciate between them and love the fact that i can have loads of tabs open - cant do that in IE6. My kids use IE7 but i dont like it. with FF i also get little icons when im on a page or when you search - so you know ou got the right one with IE you dont. so when i check my bookmarks i can see instantly which site i want

163.2.2009 16:18

Ive always used Firefox since i first had it back in 2005, version 1.4 or something.

I first discovered firefox when our school had changed their microsoft systems over to open sourced red hat linux and ubuntu etc... it had mozilla installed on there, which i think became mozilla firefox later on.

My teacher always used to say why firefox is better than IE.

173.2.2009 16:26

I always try to avoid using IE when i can. i hate it when i click on a link and it opens up in Internet Explorer. Hence why i never open my mail from Windows Live Messenger - I just log into Hotmail using Firefox.

Most people use Internet Explorer and then wonder why their accounts become hacked and why their machine become very sluggish. Probably because you are allowing your machine to be vulnerable and let information leak to annonymous people around the world or in a network!

183.2.2009 18:44

For me its all about how much resources it all takes and how long it takes to load the browser and i found the Internet Explorer takes for ever and Firefox was good i used to use it but after i updated to the new version I found that it would take as long or even longer than Explorer to load. So i tried Google Chrome and to be honest i was not a fan at first i just found it very weird but it grew on me and i am not changing back to nothing else unless certain websites only deal with Internet Explorer.

193.2.2009 20:41

I use IE at work and Firefox at home. I like to stay conversant in both.
Both are great for their purposes. IE has no problems if you stay in legitamate webspace. (popups should be illegal, though)
There are still some sites which just work better in IE.
Firefox is more of a workhorse. It downloads torrents well, protects against popups and other bad things well but still, isn't perfect.
I always take my time before I upgrade to a new version of IE.

204.2.2009 10:55

Out of them all I prefer Opera but it's strict on web pages so not great for web sites are haven't been made properly.

216.2.2009 09:22

With the possible exclusion of Win 7, M$ has continued to produce pure garbage this century. It is no wonder Internet Explorer is losing market share. It should. I saw their latest version as gratly inferior to the previous version. What kind of moronic company makes the upgrade worse? Their top management must be so stupid they probably a challanged to find the parking lot. I am sure they are all just salesmen. All the techies retired long ago.

227.2.2009 12:13

If those fools at Netscape had not been such asses to insist upon downloading - even through slow dial-up connections - by each and every individual in stead of free distribution through magazine CDs the situation would never have come to a point where IE ruled the Internet.

237.2.2009 19:46

FF has been chipping away at IE since day one. everyone knows that. i've been using FF since they were at v0.9.xx. i started enjoying it more when i created a custom silent installer in the 1.4-1.5 area. anyone ever having problems on the internet in general, i tell them to use FF. even at my job. certain sites are supposedly only made for IE, but i tell some to try FF and see if it still works, and of course it does. we all know FF is not for all sites. well FF2 can work for some stuff while FF3 doesnt. so for those people i tell them not to update to the latest FF, but still try to make sure they dont go back to IE for any reason unless they're forced to. like my wife for example, some of the things she works on dont load properly in FF 100% of the time, so IE does get some use. but not on my pc.

248.2.2009 13:26

On my XP computer i cant even go to a web page without IE crashing!!! Firefox keeps working fine tho. No wonder people go looking for a better browser!!! Now so far, IE works good on my (2 month old) vista laptop but i still run firefox on it 99.999% of the time.

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