January 10, 2005, 4:39 PM — Tech users are switching from Microsoft's Internet Explorer to Firefox in droves, based on web browser statistics from popular IT and technology web sites. While tech-savvy users lead the general population in switching, Firefox's overall US browser usage share grew over 30% in December.
Microsoft's IE continues to suffer from a flood of serious security problems. The latest vulnerability allows a Windows XP SP2 system be compromised by simply visiting a web page. The problem was identified by security firm Secunia, which has posted code that demonstrates how a malicious web site can execute arbitrary commands or install code on a Windows computer, without any user interaction. Issues like this have driven many analysts to recommend switching from IE to Firefox.
Tech-Savvy Users Switching
Recent web statistics from popular technology sites show rapid adoption of Firefox:
* Engadget.com - 18% Firefox, 57% IE
* W3Schools.com - 19% Firefox, 70% IE
* Dvorak.org - 31% Firefox, 43% IE
* BoingBoing.com - 33% Firefox, 41% IE
* Digital-web.com - 38% Firefox, 29% IE
The stats show that Firefox is rapidly eating into Internet Explorer's market share among visitors to tech sites.
General Users Adopting Firefox
Among the Web population as a whole, a similar, though less dramatic, trend is emerging. The browser usage share of Firefox has grown by more than a third over the past month according to WebSideStory, an on-demand Web analytics provider. In the one-month period from Nov. 5, 2004 to Dec. 3, 2004, Firefox's online usage share grew from 3.03 percent to 4.06 percent.
WebSideStory's sample size consists of more than 30 million daily Internet users from more than 200 countries. These visitors pass through more than 20,000 sites worldwide using WebSideStory's on-demand Web analytics services.
"Firefox's gains are clearly accelerating," notes Rand Schulman, WebSideStory's chief marketing officer. "Firefox's stated goal of gaining 10 percent of the market over the next year no longer seems unattainable."
Monitoring Firefox Growth
Because Firefox has emerged so quickly, many web statistics applications need to be updated to accurately identify hits from the browser.
Hits from Firefox users will be logged with a user agent string that looks similar to this:
Mozilla/5.0+(Windows;+U;+Windows+NT+5.1;+en-US;+rv:1.7.5)+Gecko/20041107+Firefox/1.0
Because Firefox is built on Mozilla's Gecko code and has "Gecko" in its user agent string, some stats programs report Firefox activity in a Mozilla category. Companies will want to check with their web stats vendor to ensure that they can track Firefox correctly.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Firefox's Share of Browser Market Grows 34 Percent in One Month
Microsoft Internet Explorer Multiple Vulnerabilities
Firefox to become the top browser?!
Digital Web Magazine - Browser Stats Reloaded
Mozilla and Firefox flaws exposed
