Chicago (IL) – Mozilla had a big month as Firefox is closing in on the 20% market share mark. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer continues to lose share.

Firefox has been playing with the 20% market share mark for some time now. Back in July we reported that the browser has begun jumping over 20% on several days and this trend has solidified since then. In October, Firefox’ average market share as measured by Net Applications was 19.97%, up 0.51 points from 19.46% in September.

Internet Explorer (IE) dropped from 71.52% to 71.27%, according to Net Applications, and remains the software with the fastest declining market share among a group of the six most used browsers. Since the beginning of this year, IE lost 4.2 points, while Firefox gained 2.99 points, Apple Safari 0.75 points, Opera 0.13 points and Google’s Chrome 0.74 points.

The only other browsers that gained market share between September and October was Opera, which jumped from 0.69% to 0.75%. Apple’s Safari dropped slightly from 6.65 to 6.57%, Chrome from 0.78% to 0.74% and Netscape from 0.63% to 0.45%, according to Net Applications.

In terms of operating systems, Net Applications found that Windows usage increased from 90.29% to 90.46% in October, while the presence of Macs declined from8.23% to 8.21%, Linux dropped from 0.91% to 0.71% and Apple’s iPhone showed an increase from 0.32% to 0.33%.   

do we need another firefox article

Nov 03, 2008 10:13     

I hate to say this, but do we need yet another firefox article every .25% gain? It's just a quarter of a percentage point, not even 1%. It could just be a variation that goes back and forth like the election poll. Also , where is the total number? It could well be IE grows from 11mil to 11.5 mil while firefox grows from 1 mill to 1.5 mil...hence getting a larger market share but in term of absolute percentage but both browsers are growing... This is yet another article trying to say firefix is taking over the world(.25% boo hoo..wow...)

yo report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +4

I Switched Back to Firefox from IE8

Nov 03, 2008 11:09     

IE7 is slow, however there are a lot of new and promising features in IE8. I downloaded IE8 Beta 2 and ran it exclusively for about 2 months or so. IE8 Beta 2 is pretty slick and has a lot of good features in it but the speed and stability made me revert back to Firefox. I realize that it is still in Beta and I hope that when it hits RTM it will improve on the speed and stability. Also they need a built-in spell check, I feel so naked with out it! I have to give a big thumbs up to the Firefox team for such a great browser.

Mike report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +6

can you really see a difference in speed?

Nov 03, 2008 11:30     

my only issue with IE is it crashes or slows down with heavy use but that can be expected. but as far as speed goes, I don't notice a difference between video and photo uploads and basic searching. but all competition is good news. all loss in market share is always good news to US. it means better performance, security, and aesthetic
Jonas report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

My Biggest Speed Complaint

Nov 03, 2008 12:56     

The biggest speed complaint I have for IE8 is the new full-page zoom. This was a feature 1st in Opera and then added to Firefox and finally in IE8 Beta 2. The problem with it's implementation in IE8 is that any magnification slows the page down quite a bit, esp. with scrolling. Since this is a feature I use extensively I couldn't continue to use IE8 :(
Mike report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

FF hits 20%, and still crashes like a mofo

Nov 03, 2008 15:35     

*PLEASE* mozilla, fix the crash bugs in FF...
hank report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -6

IE

Nov 03, 2008 16:16     

Internet Explorer sucks anyway:/ The sweet thing about FF is saving websites to the tabs! Down side: FF eats too much memory O_O
xino report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

@hank

Nov 03, 2008 16:17     

no crashes here.. hardly ever maybe you have some bogus extensions
err_what? report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +5

IE & FF

Nov 03, 2008 17:43     

My FF doesn't crash either. I use FF for everything except the occasional site that requires IE. Unfortunately FF isn't compatible with some sites / software. I find IE7 is quite unstable compared to IE6 and a lot slower than FF. My preferred order of the three browsers is FF, IE6, IE7. The only thing I find annoying with FF is that it sometimes maintains context across tabs / browser sessions. i.e. Change something in one browser tab and it changes it in other tabs that are at the same page / application. Really annoying when trying to bring up pages with different search criteria. I want the tabs to maintain their own context.

Davo report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

IE & FF Revisited

Nov 03, 2008 22:16     

Actually it's that some web sites aren't XHTML compatible and therefore you need IE to process them. MS in their infinite wisdom decided that they do not have to be held to the industry standard. Some programmers are just lazy enough to skate by using MS degraded version of HTML. Fortunately most of these lazy programmers are working on the next version of Windows. :-o I use IE for Windows updates only. If a website can't be processed by FF (or any other browser compliant with the standards) then it isn't worth looking at anyway.

Paul123 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

Based on IE8 Beta, MS still don't seem to get the p...

Nov 03, 2008 22:17     

Based on IE8 Beta, MS still don't seem to get the point - make the browser simple and get RID of the stupid functions that you can't turn off, get rid of annoying notification boxes (atleast let users choose to turn them off after being warned once).. I have gone to Firefox now and it is better - only had one problem and that was my own fault with ad blocker turned on - on a page that needed it.
futueknob report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

Take a look at w3counter. Much bigger share!

Nov 04, 2008 00:42     

Netstat always seems to underestimate Linux & Firefox market share. W3counter says Linux rose to 2.09% from 1,99% last month while firefox has about 30%. I can't tell if w3counter or netstat is more accurate but Linux is definitely on the rise. Not even the trolls argue about that.
L4Linux report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Firefox is the best

Nov 04, 2008 10:03     

Well, considering Firefox is the best thing out there, this does not come as any surprise. Jiff http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
Jim McDosh report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

CIO @ www.artdigitalonline.com

Nov 04, 2008 10:19     

This does not come as a surprise due to the excellent work done in the latest versions of Fire Fox. http://www.artdigitalonline.com
aalmeida report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Mine field

Nov 04, 2008 10:21     

Minefield the firefox alpha code if that any thing to go by ... FIRE FOX will be on fire
David report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

Bitches Chrome...

Nov 04, 2008 10:32     

...is the best.
Trevor report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

these figures are too less

Nov 04, 2008 10:50     

very well said yo (The person who made the first comment) and I think the figures are too less. I guess the w3counter results would be more accurate. Raj http://thepositivelife.com
Raj report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

w3c reports different stats FF at 42%

Nov 04, 2008 13:20     

http://www.w3schools.com/brows..._stats.asp
Jon report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Symbian usage

Nov 04, 2008 13:51     

What is the symbian usage? Where I could find this information?
dave report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

@hank

Nov 04, 2008 14:47     

Try the adblock plus addon. I think all those flash ads are causing the crashes, especially when you have 7 tabs open.
ray report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

FF is stable

Nov 04, 2008 15:17     

Firefox rarely ever crashes for me either. I'm sticking with Firefox right now because it's the browser I've been using for the past 4 years (before that, I used IE5-6 for several years, and before that I used Netscape, which I had been since before IE was released).
Eric report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

Good things about Firefox

Nov 04, 2008 15:21     

Other things I like about Firefox include its support for extensions & plug-ins and the numerous extensions available for it, its support for visual themes, and I think even its default theme looks nice compared to IE or Opera. And Firefox got a great speed increase with version 3, and I read that version 3.1 is supposed to be even faster.
Eric report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

http://www.aquariumfish.me

Nov 05, 2008 05:15     

Good news for firefox that http://www.aquariumfish.me
mrgtb report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

I never change

Nov 05, 2008 05:22     

I never change my mind that I really love firefox more than other browser. FF is the best browser in the word :) agus
agus report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Opera is the best

Nov 05, 2008 14:16     

Firefox is a great browser and I have no problems with it. Opera is the best, the fastest, the easiest to use. If you haven't tried it do, if you don't like it un-install it.
Marc report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

i agree

Nov 05, 2008 20:10     

with all other browsers, web-browsing is need, with opera it is pleasure. this is my quote from 2002.
huh! report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Can somebody tell me how to remove IE7 from my lapt...

Nov 05, 2008 20:55     

Can somebody tell me how to remove IE7 from my laptop
Patrick the starfish report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0