Firefox market share climbs 20 percent in Europe

(Credit: Ars Technica (Data from XiTi Monitor))

And the beat goes on. As XiTi Monitor's data shows, Firefox has been on a European tear, gaining ground at a 20 percent clip to take 28 percent market share in Europe. The loser in the battle? Internet Explorer.

The data also shows that Firefox users upgrade more often than Internet Explorer (with the majority of IE users sticking with pre-IE7 versions). There's a clear reason: People use Firefox by choice (they must download it, after all) and IE by Microsoft/PC manufacturer fiat. Most users take what is given to them and never think twice about it...until the malware hits.

Mozilla's opportunity is both to help overcome the PC manufacturer lethargy away from IE and to encourage people to make the Firefox choice. The first requires business drive and acumen, and the second requires evangelism. Could Mozilla use an upgrade on both counts? Or do the numbers suggest its strategy is working?

[PortVista-19095313035016904102]

I think almost all Firefox users use IE also, especially since you practically need IE to install Microsoft updates. There's even a very popular plug-in to load IE within Firefox. So, I'm not sure how you define market share. Both are free anyway. The only people who really care are the web designers who need to employ hacks to get their websites to work.

[john55440]

"People use Firefox by choice (they must download it, after all) and IE by Microsoft/PC manufacturer fiat."

I use IE7 by choice. I have Firefox installed as a backup browser, but use/prefer IE7.

[codex73]

Firefox is clearly a better software piece overall. Microsoft dominates the PC market making any open source software almost impossible to gain more share. IE has a slower loading process, non-standard css behavior with some code, slower page loading, available add ons and customization not geared for developers, and the list keeps going. Don't get me wrong, IE is a good browser and has good caliber of course, but when i comes to my personal choice and 85% of people i see around me everyday, its FIREFOX, NOT IE.

[kwilco]

It seems I'm constantly having to resize the window, click buttons twice or three times, and wait for IE to decide if it's going to load or not. Firefox by choice.

[curmudgeonlygoat]

Mozilla is now my backup on my windows machine, but not to IE. I really like Safari for Windows (Yes, there really is such a critter) but I still like the flavor of Mozilla that Canonical provides with Ubuntu.