Article by George Norman

On 02 Apr 2009

There are three words that reign supreme in the browser world: default, speed, and customization. When you say default, you immediately think of Internet Explorer which came bundled with the Windows operating system (I say “came” because in the upcoming Windows 7 OS the browser and other features can be turned off – details here). When you say speed, you immediately think of Google Chrome and its V8 JavaScript engine which the Mountain View search engine is more than happy to show off via Chrome Experiments. When you say customization, you think of the Firefox browser and the multitude of ways it lets you personalize the browser (like Personas, Mozilla Labs’ latest endeavor – details here).

But the customization option is just a fragment of what Mozilla has to offer. With the upcoming Firefox 3.5 (the browser formerly known as Firefox 3.1, the latest release being Firefox 3.1 Beta 3) you will have things like: Private Browsing, Cognitive Shield, enhanced stability and performance for the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, faster content rendering via the Gecko layout engine, and so on. And this on top of the high level of security provided by the Firefox browser; studies have shown that the Mozilla Foundation fixes security issues affecting their software programs faster than any other developer on the market (especially Microsoft).


Following our report that Mozilla Firefox has achieved browser domination on an entire continent, albeit the continent in question is Antarctica (details here ), we have more good news to report about Mozilla’s market share increase: Firefox is the top browser in Europe, surpassing for the first time ever Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE7, not the recently released IE8). The market share registered by Firefox was of 35.05%, just marginally higher than Internet Explorer’s share of 34.54%. Since the IE version taken in consideration here is Internet Explorer 7, rumors are going on that Microsoft will once again gain dominance with the release of IE8 RTM (release to manufacturing).

Chief Executive with StatCounter explains: “The move is partly explained by a small switch from Internet Explorer 7 usage to Internet Explorer 8, but also by growing market share overall by Firefox 3. The data shows that Firefox is closing the gap and is now just 10 percent behind all Internet Explorer versions in Europe”

Overall, Internet Explorer is still holding the lion’s share of the web browser market. Below is a detailed graph (because a picture is worth a thousand words, and in Kodak's case it is even worth some cash) showing you exactly how the browser market share is divided.





Tags: Mozilla, Firefox, Microsoft, Internet Explorer

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