Statistics show Firefox 3 spreading fast

Firefox 3 gained market share rapidly, even before it was 24 hours old.

(Credit: Net Applications)

Firefox 3 is spreading fast, claiming more than 4 percent of the share of Web browser usage less than 24 hours after its release.

According to Net Applications, which monitors browser usage at major Web sites, Firefox 3 rapidly ascended to what I'd call force-to-be-reckoned-with status, something Web designers shouldn't be ignoring. For comparison, Apple's Safari had 6.25 percent share in May, and Opera had 0.71 percent.

Undoubtedly, most Firefox 3 activity is from existing Firefox users, but it's still a notable achievement, given that software companies constantly struggle to get users to adopt the latest products.

Mozilla, which sponsors and oversees development of the open-source Web browser, released Firefox 3 for download on Tuesday. It primed the publicity pump with an effort to set a 24-hour download record, and interest by the abundant Firefox loyalists brought Mozilla's servers to their knees for nearly two hours Wednesday.

Mozilla has been fulfilling pent-up demand ever since. Sometime after 7 a.m. PDT, downloads crossed the 7 million mark, according to Mozilla's download counter, which is fun to watch, even though it's badly formatted.

The download rate, which peaked at 14,000 per minute Tuesday, was about 6,600 per minute Wednesday morning.

For full coverage, including reviews and videos, see CNET's Firefox 3 resource center.

[ewelch]

Heh,

Funny how Apple has a more standards-compliant browser than Firefox.

Good read:

http://www.bigcontrarian.com/2008/06/17/stacking-the-odds/

Firefox fanboys are as bad as Apple fanboys. Who'd a thunk?

[sanenazok]

Nope, nobody's as bad as Apple fanboys. I like Firefox, but at least I don't have to justify overspending on designer hardware.

[Penguinisto]

...as opposed to MSFT's deck-stacking (that is, you either accept IE on your machine or you don't get Windows at all), right? Idiot.

[dwr50]

I use Firefox on Linux,Vista, and Apple OS 10.2.8. Firefox... the one browser that rules them all.

[Penguinisto]

Ditto here. Safari is pretty nice, but I tend to use Firefox because I can use it across Linux, OSX, and Windows, no sweat. Safari has no Linux equivalent (except maybe Konqueror, which it got a huge chunk of its original code from), which is kinda sad, because it actually stands a chance of competing with FF. IE doesn't run on anything but Windows (and is still the biggest security hole of them all). Opera I guess I've just never gotten into.

[Penguinisto]

Stephen: You're welcome :)

[cnetcensorssuck]

....and the clueless, ewelch, are even worse than fanboys. Safari is no more standards compliant than Firefox 3.

[WileySkier]

Firefox 3 is better than the previous version. The only complaint is it sets itself as the default browser without asking you.

[Penguinisto]

Actually, I thought it simply kept your previous settings (FF is set as default on everything by one of my Macs, but Safari remained the default there). May be a Windows/Mac thing?

[Shankland]

On Windows, it definitely asked me whether it wanted to be the default browser--though it checked the box by default.

[JCPayne]

The ONE thing I would say. Mozilla next time you plan a huge download day. POST the time zone.... There was sooo much mass confusion with people from Australia saying it is June 17th and nothing is available... And then when it reached the USA it was even more confusion... 10am Pacific Time Zone is also not- usually a good time to post by. Nextime tell everyone the time according to Internet time--- a.k.a the UTC time zone.

[angrykeyboarder]

They did post it (just not in the right places). :D

[angrykeyboarder]

One thing to keep in mind.

Here is my user agent string from Firefox 3 (downloaded yesterday). : Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052912 Firefox/3.0

I have been using Firefox 3 since Beta 1 and the user agent string included "Firefox/3.0" starting with RC1. This means the Firefox 3 stats they got could include stuff tracked well before the official release (e.g several weeks before)..

[Shankland]

I think Net Applications is being more sophisticated than that, because they showed 0 percent usage for Firefox 3 until June 17, when the final version was available for download.

[The_Decider]

"something Web designers shouldn't be ignoring"

Web designers need to test on all major browsers, but they should never, ever develop for specific browsers. Code to standards not browsers.

[Shankland]

I'd think pragmatic concerns would prevail here. Code for the user. Coding to standards is well and good if the page renders well in the browser. But it's telling that Microsoft wants to push toward standards.

[The_Decider]

Code for the user? Of course, but those are features and has nothing to do with coding to standards.

"Mozilla has been fulfilling pent-up demand ever since. Sometime after 7 a.m. PDT, downloads crossed the 7 million mark, according to Mozilla's download counter, which is fun to watch, even though it's badly formatted. "

Use FireFox and you will see it is formatted correctly.

[Shankland]

I *am* using Firefox, version 3 no less. The issue is that it expects a very large screen, I believe. (It doesn't work well for me even with 1280 pixels width available.) I just tried it on IE7 and it looks gicky there, too.

[diegoEL]

Using Safari also looks good. However, IE doesn't display the site properly (oh, what a surprise).