“At about 8 a.m. PDT Friday, Firefox crossed the billion-download threshold–a notably large number for Mozilla’s open-source Web browser but one that doesn’t tell the whole story,” Stephen Shankland reports for CNET.
“Firefox director Mike Belztner said in June that Mozilla estimates there are 300 million Firefox users, up from 175 million a year earlier, so don’t go thinking there are a billion people using it. Indeed, I find the total user population a much more interesting statistic than downloads,” Shankland reports. “Firefox has truly achieved real success, eating steadily into Microsoft Internet Explorer’s dominant market share to become the second-most used browser.”
“After years of near-dormancy after IE crushed Netscape in the 1990s, the browser wars are back in full swing. The growing migration of personal and professional activity to Web applications, the growing adoption of broadband Internet connections, and the growing adoption of truly Web-capable mobile phones are combining to make Web browsers a strategic asset in the computing industry,” Shankland reports. “Apple, Microsoft, Mozilla, Google, Opera Software, and others all want to be the gateway to the world’s most vibrant medium, the Internet.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Congrats, Mozilla!
(We’ve downloaded more than a few of those Firefox downloads over the years, but we currently use Safari 4 exclusively.)
I can’t use Safari on my Wintel laptop. But I’m Safari only on my Macs
Muraski:
Why not? It works exceptionally well.
Why not? Safari works on Windows.
An abundance of great web browsers used to be a Mac OS X thing, where there has been no Internet Explorer to deal with for a long time. It’s good to see the Windows PC world catching on that there are alternatives to IE…
It doesn’t work as well chrome or firefox on windows. Unfortunately, safari is just too slow on most windows machines.
Pay attention to the kharma lesson all you corporate folks that work for companies MS, Dell, Palm.
You badmouth Apple and face the wrath.
You compete on merits and you get something like: “MacDailyNews Take: Congrats, Mozilla!”
Safari on Windows doesn’t fit well with other applications compare to Safari on Mac OS. That’s why only Apple provides full integration in software and hardware compare to the competition.
Get a Mac: Life is simple.
Well done Mozilla indeed. The Web was in major danger of becoming a Microsoft only entity until Firefox broke the stranglehold. The increase in Mac sales is in part down to them.
Safari on Windows is a resource hog. I uninstalled it and use Firefox exclusively on my work PC.
On my MacBook, it’s another story: Safari 4 runs circles around FireFox.
I’ve been a fan of Firefox ever since it was called Phoenix. On my PC at work, I use the Portable Edition of Firefox running on a USB drive. I never use Internet Explorer. I use the latest Webkit build most of the time on my Mac at home. Firefox is my backup.
Firefox: Because users want a reload button where it belongs!
15 year Mac user here…
I tried to use Safari on our Terminal Server (Win 2003) but I keep getting ‘Memory Exception Error’ messages. I’ve yet to successfully launch it.
Any ideas what the problem is? I’d dump Firefox and IE straight away if I could get Dafari to launch.
Cheers!
FF3 is increasingly getting slower at startup. On my work PC I can double click FF. Wait a couple seconds. Then click on Chrome, and Chrome will open up before first sign of FF window even showing. FF is good because it styles Google Apps best outside of Chrome, and Firebug is a great tool. The Web Inspector on Safari is just as good though.
I ran the acid test for both safari and firefox. 100 for s. 93 for ff. But safari has been crashing a lot lately. I have been using ff and have not had any problems in the past couple of weeks.
Buttons are for noobs. Seriously. Just do (command)+r / F4.
There’s nothing wrong with Firefox (although I definitely prefer Safari), but the enormous popularity of Firefox says more about the total inadequacy of Internet Explorer than it does about the brilliance of Firefox. Nevertheless, anything that helps loosen Microsoft’s death grip on the industry is a good thing in my book.
I hate to say it but Safari is sooooo slow on my iMac. I’ve been using FF since the lastest Safari update and loving it. It’s fast and simple. Apple please fix Safari oh and I have no plug-ins so I can’t understand how other versions of Safari was blazing fast and now it seems bloted.
Safari is my preferred browser. The latest Firefox has made tremendous leaps forwards to feeling native on the Mac, but still isn’t 100% there. For those that claim Safari is slow, but Firefox is fast really need a reality check. Both are super fast. Safari is faster at starting.
From Netscape 4.7.9 (who here remembers that one?) until Safari 3, Firefox was my bestest buddy. Sorry old friend, but Safari started to kick your ass.
FYI, if you like Firefox 3.5 but want it to look more like Safari, the GrApple themes are nice.
Yea, I downloaded it and and there updates (you should have multiple web browsers these days) but I keep going back to Safari.
Oops, (their)
oh, and congratulations!
firefox, safari I used before… all I passed over google chrome. it’s the best.
Safari on Macs, Firefox on PCs. IE doesn’t exist for me. I’d rather not go online than use that clunky thing.
@Silver surfer
Safari should easily blow firefox out of the water on Mac OS X. Try clearing out your browser cache as it may have been corrupted. If that doesn’t work try Cache Out X, it made a great improvement to Safari on my G5.