August 24, 2008...4:39 am

Firefox to pass Internet Explorer (IE) in May 2009?

Jump to Comments

Don’t look now, but the Microsoft’s browser dominance is going away.  According to data from w3schools, it looks like IE peaked in September 2003 at 87% share of the worldwide browser market.  At that time, Mozilla had a share of 6%.  In July 2008, IE had a share of 52% and Firefox (plus Mozilla) was 43%. 

To answer the question of when (if?) Firefox will pass IE, I simply used Microsoft Excel’s extrapolation feature (take a series in a consistent order, drag right corner of last cell to extrapolate).  This is what I got.

According to these crude projections, Firefox will pass IE in May 2009.  And if I’m wrong, blame Microsoft ;)

PS.  Stop developing ActiveX plugins if you can use AJAX or Flash.

PSS.  If you must develop an ActiveX plugin to obviate the browser security model, you better also build a Java plugin so that Firefox and Safari users can use your product, too.

Update 8/23/08:  As TimTrueman points out in the comments section, the w3schools data likely has a selection bias towards alternative technologies.

4 Comments

Filed under ideas

Tags: ,

4 Comments

  • Tim Trueman
    August 24, 2008 at 4:56 am

    I was going to say something but then I realized w3schools already said it for me:

    W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers.

    These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users.

    Anyway, our data, collected from W3Schools’ log-files, over a five year period, clearly shows the long and medium-term trends.

  • Mike Speiser
    August 24, 2008 at 4:58 am

    Very good point Tim. The trend is still accurate, but the date is likely much further away ;)

  • Tim Trueman
    August 24, 2008 at 5:02 am

    For sure. I can’t wait for IE (well at least ones that don’t support standards) to die. I’ve been really impressed with WebKit ever Apple’s Safari team came and showed yahoos the next version a couple weeks ago. The new inspector is basically Firebug but built-in.

  • FN
    August 24, 2008 at 5:45 am

    Good data. I’ve noticed this for a while on my blog…the curious fact that well over 50% (sometimes over 80%) of visitors are using non-IE browsers. That said, there is definitely a selection bias going on since entrepreneurs and VCs are trying stuff other than what Windows gives by default.

    Email, though, seems like a bigger problem. Have you ever tried to send out an HTML email newsletter? It’s like trying to have a peaceful election in the Balkans.

Leave a Reply