IE shrinks in '09 but maintains dominance

[DKT27]

IE shrinks in '09 but maintains dominance

Last year brought market share growth for all major browsers except Microsoft's Internet Explorer, according to Net Applications' annual industry report released Wednesday.

The year ended with Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome enjoying gains of about 3 percentage points, while Apple's Safari climbed a single percentage point. Opera stayed relatively flat with a gain of 0.23 points, but IE saw a decline of nearly 8 percentage points.

Though IE's popularity may have sunk, the Microsoft browser still boasts a greater market share than all the other browsers combined with 62.69 percent of the audience.

Changes in 2009 market share for browsers

Firefox now has a 24.61 percent share, leaving Chrome with 4.63 percent, Safari with 4.46 percent, and Opera with 2.4 percent.

Internet Explorer's gradual loss of market share occurred despite Microsoft's launch of IE 8. The new version may not be able to stem the tide, according to Net Applications. For years, IE faced virtually no competition, so Microsoft had few reasons to enhance or innovate as market leader. As Firefox usage started to climb and Chrome joined the ranks, Microsoft released IE 8 and hoped that its new features would halt the browser's decline. But with more browsers in the market, competition is tighter than ever. And so far, IE 8 hasn't had much impact on recapturing lost market share.

Microsoft also now faces a cloudy browser environment in Europe. In 2007, Norway-based Opera Software pressed the European Commission to investigate Microsoft over IE's alleged browser monopoly on the desktop. To placate the EC, Redmond was forced to design a Choice Screen that displays a list of 12 different browsers that people can install and set up as the default. Though the effect of the Choice Screen remains to be seen, Net Applications believes it will significantly alter browser market share in Europe.

For relative newcomer Chrome, 2009 was a banner year. After its unveiling in late 2008, Google's browser took awhile to catch on but then saw its use double over the first half of 2009. Chrome, which trailed Safari in market share virtually all of last year, finally surpassed Apple's browser in December for the first time, making it the third most popular browser.

Though Chrome's 4.63 percent share of the market is still far behind that of second place Firefox, Mozilla now needs to look at not just catching up with IE but at holding off Google's up and comer, Net Applications said.

Safari's gains have come about mostly as the Mac OS has grown in popularity. With the debut of Windows 7 OS in October, Windows seems to have halted some of the loss in market share to Apple, notes Net Applications. But Safari still grew throughout the year, especially in December, thanks in large part to its use on mobile devices. Mobile browsers now account for 1.3 percent of all Web browsing.

Source - CNET

[ESET Freak]

IE can be great, it just needs to slim down, more customizable and the number of add-ons are too little.

[Bizarre™]

IE dominates because it comes with Windows.

Remove it from Windows, then let's see.

[DKT27]

+1.

IE ( 8 )is really slow and as per the link once Bizarre gave me, it's not compatible with many websites, in addition to other negatives.

[Night Owl]

IE8 has some good points. Uh, uhm, oh what was one now? ;) :D Oh right. It's the best browser I have seen for printing (to either a printer or a PDF file). Firefox has serious printing issues that they just don't bother to fix. For example, I was just notified yesterday about yet another bug being closed as a duplicate of bug 129941 that was opened way, way back on 2002-03-10. Why doesn't Firefox just fix their serious printing bugs instead of closing new bug after new bug as a duplicate of an almost 10-year-old bug?

Data loss in printouts is not acceptable to me, but it seems to be fine for the Firefox developers.

[DKT27]

I use (office)word or foxit if needed to print. ;)

[Night Owl]

I use Word (Office 2007) and Foxit (Phantom) for printing too. But you cannot initiate anything from Firefox unless you don't care about data loss. Firefox developers have had almost 10 years to fix the problem I linked to, but all they do is close new bugs as duplicates of this very old bug. There's another serious Firefox bug where they want me to go through every single Firefox build to pinpoint exactly when they introduced the regression — but it takes a few steps to reproduce and I don't want to mess up my Firefox setup. Why can't they find their own regression?

IE8 (and IE7) also have an excellent Print Preview that lets you easily "shrink to fit" a certain number of pages.

So IE is unbeatable for printing Web pages, but I usually use other browsers for Web surfing. Firefox is the only browser that can correctly copy text (with bullets, etc) from a Web page — no other browser that I have used can do this simple task correctly.

This message has been brought to you by Firefox 3.6 RC1. Use the force, Luke DKT27. :D

[DKT27]

:lol: Good that you didn't called me aniken. :lol:

Well I agree that IE has good Print Preview. But I don't print more often so, I'm not too expert in it. ;)

[HX1]

IE dominates because it comes with Windows.

Remove it from Windows, then let's see.

No, no.. you see, what you should blame are the people who are still stupid enough to be using it.. I still use it ( so I am just occasionally stupid )...But I actually like IE8 in many ways.. I don't see it being all that bad, just the most widely distributed, and pre-installed..( which I think is a good thing for people who know NOTHING about a computer, which you would think would be less often and non-existent.. but its not ) I dunno though I think they all have their good and bad points. Just hope your not in Tech Support when they remove it.. One million callers per week do not know how to get online, will turn into fifty..

On the printing issue, I haven't ever run across it... but then again I don't print on valuable trees either.. Printing is just wasteful IMO.. so I stay away from it as much as possible.. ( funny thing is I used to do it for a living, professionally )... Regardless.. if I print something.. Like printing the two Sky-scrapers for my Dad to see.. The 'Vertical City' and the other one... FF printed it right justified.. and with header and footers.. If I want something done correctly and nice I use a more sophisticated program which offers creation and editing features to accomplish what needs to be done... You just get a better result in the end anyway..there is no reasonable 'Print' function for that.. If I need to save something then I save it complete, and go about moving/editing/protecting it..

I will have to admit though that Microsoft has really upgraded these features with Office 2010 though.. quite nice..

[Bizarre™]

@heath28m:

I wasn't blaming anyone. I was talking about which browser will dominate if things change.

[DKT27]

Yea blaming IE is my job. :lol:

[Night Owl]

On the printing issue, I haven't ever run across it... but then again I don't print on valuable trees either.. Printing is just wasteful IMO.. so I stay away from it as much as possible..

...

I will have to admit though that Microsoft has really upgraded these features with Office 2010 though.. quite nice..

I almost never print on trees either. But I do frequently print to PDF files using Foxit Phantom (and Adobe Acrobat Pro before). It's no fun when Firefox prints part of one line at the bottom of a PDF page and then prints the other part of the same line at the top of the next PDF page. The Firefox printer developer is well aware of the issue. What's even worse is when whole blocks of your Web page go missing and week after week the Firefox printer developer just keeps closing new bug reports as a duplicate of almost-10-year-old bug 129941 that I linked to earlier. And the first keyword describing bug 129941 is "dataloss" :huh: :fear: :omg: :wtf:

IE7 and IE8 are great for printing (to PDF or physical paper). And the taskbar preview of all your tabs in Windows 7 can be nice sometimes too. But for regular Web surfing I usually use Firefox or SRWare Iron 4.0.

[DKT27]

I wonder, how can someone print wood. :think: :lol:

But hey did firfox existed 10 years ago? :huh:

[Night Owl]

Yes, Firefox existed 10 years ago. More than 10 years ago. As seen in the history of Firefox, Mozilla Firefox was an offshoot of the Mozilla Suite:

The development was spearheaded by the Mozilla Organization from 1998 to 2003, and by the Mozilla Foundation since 2003.

Oh, in my previous message, I quoted heath's mention of Office 2010, but I forgot to ask about it. Would you strongly recommend Office 2010? I'm running Office 2007 on Windows 7 Ultimate x64 right now. I've read that to use Office 2010 it is strongly recommended to uninstall all previous versions of Office.

[HX1]

Well previous to 2010 I owned 2007, and yes I did completely uninstall 2007 and all related components. One thing you need to bear in mind is that several add-ins and things such as Spam filters for Outlook will no longer work, as these add-ins have yet to really be created, to work correctly with 2010. HOWEVER, all of that aside, if there is something that is not solely important to have for the method in which you use use Office... UPGRADE.. There have been many changes and the program is just all around great for your needs.. I have several other of the new matching Beta installed that are part of the suite installed with mine, and I just love it.. Easy, smarter...just all around a better product.