Firefox Ready to be the #1 Browser

Are you a Firefox user? Apparently, if you are you’re not alone. Sometime this year when I wasn’t paying attention Firefox rocketed to a new high. For over three years I watched as Firefox hovered between a 30–34% browser share. This month I was surprised to see that Firefox consistently exceeds 40% and is preparing to take over IE as the most popular browser.

Bits From Bill – August 2, 2009

A lot has changed in the past three years.

In June 2008 the release of Firefox 3.0 was a huge event. Mozilla set the Guinness world record for the most downloads in a single day. Over 8 million users downloaded Firefox 3 on Junes 17th, 2008. While it increased the credibility of Firefox the browser world was still dominated by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

The release of Firefox 3.5 didn’t break records but it was successful in attracting new users. Most folks are happy with the increased performance of Firefox but the availability of Firefox add-ons has really helped push this open source browser over the top. When I asked my friends on Twitter for their reason for the switch to Firefox, add-ons was a consistent reply.

The stats above only reflect recent users to Bits From Bill. Some site will still show higher IE stats. Currently, WinPatrol.com shows IE users as 48% and Firefox as 35%. According to Harry McCracken, Firefox is also popular on sites which have a large number of Mac users.

“52 percent of Technologizer's visitors use Firefox. It's still growing in popularity all over the Web, but its usage is particularly high at sites with more experienced, sophisticated visitors. And it's especially likely to be popular at sites that cater to both Windows and Mac users, since Mac fans almost by definition are using a browser other than IE.”

Steve Bass: Ten More Super-Duper Firefox Add-Ons

Wow! Vista's Been Here for 100 Days

The official launch of Windows Vista celebrates a 100 day milestone this week. Not everyone has embraced Windows Vista but Microsoft(MSFT) claims over 20 million licenses were sold in its first 30 days. They say it’s twice the adoption rate of Windows XP when it was released.

Unlike every other version of Window I still only use Vista on a test machine. In the past, I upgraded as soon as a new Windows was released. Everyone agrees, the new Aero interface is nice, but some have complained it can be a drain on laptop batteries. There also seems to be a love-hate relationship with the new User Access Control feature which makes Vista more secure.

According to my Blog stats 7.65% of my readers are now using Vista.

This is up from 1.3% which I documented on January 22nd. Initial predictions estimated Vista infiltration to be at 15% within the first year.

It looks like Vista is here to stay and Microsoft is busy making improvements based on user feedback. According to an interview in WindowsITPro by Paul Thurrott, “Microsoft will fix or create drivers for any device that generates 500 or more user reports.” Maybe it’s really worth while to send those error reports to Redmond when your system crashes. According to Microsoft, the only exception appears to be “drivers for devices that are no longer sold because the company that made them went out of business”.

This week a number of fixes were included in auto updates for both Windows XP, Vista and Office. I’m sure Microsoft will keep them coming. I’ll probably wait until SP1 before I upgrade my main machine but obviously regular folks have been Wow’d by Vista.