Web Browser Popularity
If you take a look at the five most popular web browsers right now, you will notice huge differences in popularity among them. The web browsers in question are Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari and Google Chrome.
Firefox was - and is still - the only web browser that was able to take away a huge chunk of the web browser market from Microsoft. Opera, Safari and Google Chrome remain niche browsers that have not reached the popularity of Firefox up to this point in time.
The question to ask is therefore the following: Why is the Mozilla Firefox web browser more popular than the other three Internet Explorer contenders? Microsoft's Internet Explorer is in a unique position as it is distributed automatically with the Windows operating system. This alone ensures that the browser has a sizeable share of the browser market.
A look at a comparison of all five web browsers at Google Trends and their search and news volume over the last five years reveals some interesting information. Firefox started to become the most searched after web browser in 2004 and was able to keep the lead until today. The other web browsers spiked at specific times, e.g. during the release of Google Chrome, but failed to take advantage of those spikes.
Mozilla Firefox (light blue line) definitely gets more press coverage than the other web browsers which might be one of the reasons for its popularity. If you open a computer magazine you will most likely find Firefox articles but rarely anything about Opera, Chrome or Safari.
Speed or compatibility are most likely not a deciding factor for the popularity, as all web browsers are speedy and stable enough to provide a good user experience. Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still lagging behind speed wise but the latest Internet Explorer 8 made a huge jump in this regards and is closing in on the other web browsers.
The main reason for Firefox's success is its extensibility in my opinion. Firefox add-ons increase the functionality of the web browser enormously, and they also ensure that any new popular feature that might be introduced by another web browser company will be offered to the Firefox community as well. The main advantage of this approach is speed. When Opera introduced Speed Dial it took only a short time before the first Firefox add-ons appeared that mimicked that feature.
Ten years ago it would have taken months or even years as those features would be implemented by the developers of the web browser directly. The add-ons ensure that Firefox stays on top or close to the top in all regards. This is something that no other web browser offers currently.
Microsoft tried with the Internet Explorer Marketplace but it never gained the popularity that it needed to take off. Opera tried with their Widgets. Widgets are small extra windows that provide many of the features that add-ons do. The main problem for many users is that the widgets cannot be integrated into the web browser's interface. Both Safari and Chrome do not offer something similar yet. The extensibility is obviously not the only reason for the success but it makes a huge difference.
Now it's time to chime in and let me hear your opinion. What do you think about web browser popularity?
I’m still very amazed, people haven’t found Opera way better than Firefox… even Opera invents alot of those innovations, which are making Firefox popular… funny, eh?
Personally, I don’t give a sh*t what browser others are using, I’m happy with my Opera (been _very_ long time) and no intentions to change my habits.
Firefox’s popularity is over stated and how do you think this will go? Firefox’s tactics is like gas in WW1 really, it works well at the first few times but the enemy will adapt (made really easy with the whole open source thing).
I seriously don’t see how many google searches are going to affect downloads. People are probably just googling for the new version or some really “AWESOME” twitter addon.
Also if I remember correctly firefox was launched on a wave of bullshit security claims ~.~.
Edit: Not to say firefox is not useful, it’s like gas (:D) it does kill if you get my example.
Firefox success was built on agressive marketing campaign. It had nothing to do with tech side.
Browser “market” is buzz and bull. There is no actual reason to care who has which (mostly made up) percentage.
Having more or less of market has absolutely nothing to do how good browser is and how well it fits your needs.
On extensions – time and experience prety much cured me of extensibility obsession. Grabbing specialized and efficient solution beats “do-it-yourself” most of the time. Not always but still.
100% in agreement with Simakuutio. Also agree with Rarst that Firefox leads because of marketing ONLY, not on features or anything else.
I think it’s really amazing that Opera is not a lot bigger, and also that IE is still so big. I love Firefox and always will, but I was an avid Opera fan before, and I still like them, I just got comfortable with Firefox, and it does have better extensions, at least now.
However, opera has a ton of features which easily surpass Firefox. I always liked the stremlined built in email, although the structure of how it handles mail makes it a bit useless to me, but that is just my own problem.
While I would protect Firefox against a lot of stuff, I am incined to agree that marketing was the only difference. Although the fact that it is so easy to extend Firefox makes it in most cases much more useful.
As long as IE is loosing that’s a good thing. IE IS getting better, but the curse of IE 6 will long be with us…
A brief look at history will explain things. Firefox is derived from Netscape which (previously called Mosaic) was the first web browser. Internet Explorer was built on Mosaic too. Everybody used Mosaic (later named Netscape) because it was the ONLY web browser in existence.
When Microsoft shipped IE with Windows, they quickly took all the market share by hugely expanding the market. Netscape still had a huge amount of good will from geeks, though; techinical people who had to download their web browser via FTP or had to receive it on floppy disks from their ISP didn’t forget Netscape even if they used IE. Netscape retained much of its inertia even if IE was taking a lot of its actual usage.
In 1998, much of Netscape’s code was made open source, in the form of the Netscape-sponsored Mozilla project. Allowing average schmoes to get their hands dirty in it, and the publicity of the whole antitrust thing against Microsoft, really got people’s attention.
Eventually they found ways to make money which could be spent on marketing. The significant inertia that Mozilla still retained from Netscape, with many of its users (and a huge developer community) being activist techie types, meant lots of viral marketing (before “viral marketing” was coined as a phrase, I think they called it underground marketing). The multitudes of developers with widely varying interests made lots of extensions and such, and stayed cohesive as a community. They made a heavy but capable browser that always had inertia, always had a large fan base, and eventually managed to recapture a large portion of its lost marketshare from IE.
In the meantime, Opera was trying to sell a browser for money by making it have more features and be smaller/more efficient. It started ~1996. Users were always comfortable with free browsers Mosaic/Netscape/Mozilla and IE and Opera failed to gain large marketshare. Opera eventually went free (as in beer, not open source) but it was too late. They did pick up much of the embedded market, especially the now-ubiquitous cell phones. That was some good business on their part.
Safari, a relative newcomer (2003), was limited to Apple products. Few people would completely change their platform just for Safari, unless it really offered some incredibly increased functionality (but I’m not aware of anything like that). Recently they started offering it for Windows users, but Windows users already have a large quantity of great choices anyway.
Firefox – powerful weapon with lot of feautures for internet browsing. Its my choice.
the reason really can be stated in one word: extensions. marketing may draw folks to firefox, but extensions are what hooks them. in a competition between out-of-the-box browsers opera or chrome beat firefox.
look at the lists of favorite extensions that people post. they vary widely. this points to the reason for firefox’s success, namely, that you can make it your own based on your usage style. firefox has no real competition in this regard.
I was long-time Opera user, but I moved to Firefox (Opera fans will blast me for that).
I think the reasons are that Firefox is:
– popular. If you are using something popular, it increases you chances to get “community support” when you need support.
– well-supported not only by browser developers, but by web-developers too (and by third-party developers). Opera is famous for problems with some sites, even popular. It was one of the main reasons for me to move, along with better handling of downloads (many times I got in Opera .rar archives opened as .html pages)
– have some advantages over the IE (no BHO and this mean less holes to put in some malware)
– Firefox is what you put in it. If you use just “clean install” – you get “just something better that IE”. If you want to get more – install extensions.
– because of extensions is much more flexible that Opera or IE. Many user talking about Firefox talk about extensions – some about many, some about few, but extensions anyway.
@Roman
I’m not going to blast you but I do have some problems with your points. :)
>chances to get “community supportâ€
I seriously fail to see what community support might be needed for in any browser. Browser experience is
a) simplistic
b) standard
Power users may dig deeper but that’s minority and has little to do with overall browser appeal.
>Opera is famous for problems with some sites
I don’t remember problem with rendering any site with Opera in years. This argument is seriously outdated.
Browser experience is
a) simplistic
b) standard
This is thing of the past, like “the car should have only four wheels and steering wheel” :) Did you see how many user don’t want to move to Chrome without extensions or ad-blocker at least?
I seriously fail to see what community support might be needed for in any browser.
I was software forum moderator and active answerer for some time.
The most popular request for the IE is “my browsers constantly open porn sites, how to cease it” :)
As for Opera or FF it can be setting them up to work with proxy servers, how to set up cache, or mail, or what, and various “how-tos”. “How to download that video”, for expample, – it isn’t browser-related directly, but Firefox extensions come in help and people see it.
I don’t remember problem with rendering any site with Opera in years. This argument is seriously outdated.
When I installed betas of 9.00 in 2006, the “100% CPU” was common problem on beta-testing forum. And I saw like people talked about it later.
And there were also problems, related not to rendering, but to various javascripts.
>Did you see how many user don’t want to move to Chrome without extensions or ad-blocker at least?
Did you see how many people have no freaking idea what Chrome is and won’t know for years? Don’t mistake vocal minority for bulk of users.
For non-techies single difference between browsers is icon color.
>The most popular request for the IE is “my browsers constantly open porn sites, how to cease it†:)
Ok, I’ll take this one but you suddenly changed browser in question. :)
>When I installed betas of 9.00 in 2006
Breaking news! Stable, 9.64 (upcoming 10), 2009. :)))
Breaking news! Stable, 9.64 (upcoming 10), 2009. :)))
I started to prepare move in 2007, then in 2008 I moved to a new job and decided that it’s time to move to the new browser too (most my new colleagues use FF). In the middle of 2008 I moved from Opera to FF3 at home.
And I don’t see reasons to move back to Opera now. I’m happy with Firefox 3.
And I don’t see reasons to move back to Opera now. I’m happy with Firefox 3.
Which is perfectly fine. As I said what is not fine is throwing around dusted arguments from years back. :)
As I said what is not fine is throwing around dusted arguments from years back. :)
I used Opera for 7 years, and, you know, those problems remained actual for years – problems with javascripts, with 100% CPU on some sites, with bugs in Opera mail, opening .rar archives as Html pages – all. From 6 to 9.
If Opera developers did with all that – wish them luck.
improper rendering of some pages in opera is not a dusty issue; still happens.
rarst, your entire argument seems to be as defence attorney for the unthinking, unimaginative, and non-creative user. they don’t need one. for them the practical differences between firefox, opera, chrome, flock, and even i.e., are insignificant.
i’ve been using shiretoko for months now and it smokes. way better than official ff3. check it.
@archer
improper rendering of some pages in opera is not a dusty issue; still happens.
URLs please. Last time we had this discussion in gHacks comments someone actually managed to came up with one poorly-coded multi-megabyte advertorial page that did have rendering problems. :)
My argument is that fanboy holy wars make little sense and do little good for browsers.
And most of users who use browsers ARE unthinking, unimaginative, and non-creative. They want to go read news and their mail. Not state-of-the-art extensible framework with ultra-powerful JS engine.
I get to ask “What browser do you want me to install?” question a lot. Know what? “Ehm” and “I don’t care” answers lead.
My argument is personal preference and educated choice instead of dumb market share figures, outdated myths and features 99% of users won’t ever care about.
I prefer Opera and use it for 95% of all my browsing. I use Firefox, Chrome, and IE for a few specific sites and under some conditions.
I don’t see many true rendering errors in Opera, but some sites still just plain don’t work. Try logging in to Sprint.com or Progressive.com with Opera, for example. I use Firefox for those.
Google Reader (their RSS aggregator), Google Maps, and gmail run incredibly slow in Opera. I still use them in Opera anyway, though I’ve been using Chrome for Google Maps lately…that one may be the worst offender.
@Rick
Visited Sprint and Progressive (without trying login). Sorint indeed has problems in Opera, I think they overdid it with frames. :) Good example for once.
Google Reader (their RSS aggregator), Google Maps, and gmail run incredibly slow in Opera
I don’t use Reader, do remember some slowdowns in Opera but that was long time ago.
Google Maps – just zoomed from world to my house in Opera and Firefox. Opera loads frames slightly slower, Firefox is less responsive to scroll. Can’t say experience is much different.
Google Mail – after I consolidated my email accounts to it I use it all the time at work and on the go. Works perfectly fine and fast for me.
How old is your Opera installation? If it had numerous installs on top that may create some performance issues. Opera likes clean reinstall from time to time – one of the biggest real downsides to it. I hope auto-update upcoming in 10 will do better.
The main reason that Firefox is more used than Opera is because majors newsletters and ‘advice’ sites never mention Opera when talking about moving to something other than IE. I recently made comment about this to “Windows Secrets.”
Very many of them simply do not even mention Opera’s existence as an ‘alternative’ browser.
In fact, I have recently seen a number of articles at PC World and ZDNet which talk about the “Browser Wars” that do not even include Opera at all. This while making big mention of Safari and even Flock.
It has much less to do with which browser is ‘better” (although I love my Opera and find Firefox ‘clunky’) than it does with the internet ‘media’ completely ignoring Opera’s existence.
It has been my experience that those who are moving directly from IE to an ‘alternative’ browser find Opera more ‘friendly’ than many others. Many other users would too- if they knew it was an option.
Try it out yourself- sit a long time IE user down in front of default installed Firefox and Opera and let them try both. With which do they feel more comfortable?
If Opera, Chrome and IE could use Firefox addons, we might see a real shift is user demographics. I know I would immediately jump to Opera or Chrome.
It’s not extensions, but Opera can use Greasemonkey scripts. Google for “userjs”.
2 Rick
Scripts can’t make substantial changes in browser usability.
Here is some list of functionality based on that I’m using in FF.
– “Fast dial” (hardcoded in Opera, extensions in FF)
– “Img like Opera”
– “FoxyProxy” (automatic proxy switching)
– “Read it later” (special bank for links you want read later)
– TabMix Plus (do with the tabs almost what you want)
…
2 darkenrhl
If Opera, Chrome and IE could use Firefox addons, we might see a real shift is user demographics. I know I would immediately jump to Opera or Chrome.
I think to do this they should implement model like XUL (XML User Interface Language), and because of this… became FireFox :)
There is very little feature extensiblity in OPERA.
Like, there is no bookmarks synchronisation – in firefox there is foxmarks addon.
There is no twitter companion for opera.
There is no stumble upon toolbar (not sure of this).
There are tonnes of features that can be included in firefox in the form of addons and can be built right into the browser. This is not at all possible in opera.
That is the reason for opera’s failure.
Infact, i am surprised that people still find opera to be better than firefox!!
(I am sure there is an addon for every feature you like in opera!)
Infact, i am surprised that people still find opera to be better than firefox!!
JswaroopR, the Opera is well-packed with features (no need to work with the addons).
It is one of great IT paradigms: “What do you prefer
Constructor, – program allowing construction from modules
of
Combine – program, packed with ton of features in core (dubbed “combine” like we called that old big tape recorder + radio + eq + speakers systems)”.
I think this paradigm is everlasting, because depends on person’s tastes and habits. Some do prefer Constructors, and some do prefer Combines.
And Opera is very fast in loading and page rendering. Some people do prefer just that.
JswaroopR wrote: “there is no bookmarks synchronisation – in firefox there is foxmarks addon.”
Really? Oh, I’ll have to quit using that feature now that I know it’s not really there…wait, that’s not right. Oh yeah, Opera does have that after all. Opera Link is one of the built-in features. No addon required.
“There are tonnes of features that can be included in firefox in the form of addons and can be built right into the browser. This is not at all possible in opera.”
http://widgets.opera.com would like to disagree with you to the tune of almost 1,200 addons. In fact, there’s a Twitter widget on the front page there. Also, Opera can use most Greasemonkey scripts (without needing a Greasemonkey addon) as well as its own Greasemonkey-like scripting.
Then there’s loads and loads of custom buttons that you can add simply by dragging and dropping from sites like this:
http://operawiki.info/CustomButtons
Firefox is great, but you do your own agenda a disservice by being ignorant and using false arguments.
well regarding the loading problem, i use “firefox preloader”, so my firefox loads very fast…
There is also “firefox lite”, if someone wants a version of firefox which is fast and with minimum features.
And yeah i do agree with – “depends on person’s tastes and habits”
So we cant really make a generalised decision as to which browser is the best. :D
@JswaroopR
There is very little feature extensiblity in OPERA.
There is enourmous amount of ways in which Opera can be customized and extended.
Like, there is no bookmarks synchronisation
There is.
There is no twitter companion for opera
There is.
There is no stumble upon toolbar (not sure of this)
There is. Native SU in-browser toolbar, 3rd party extensions in different forms.
There are tonnes of features that can be included in firefox in the form of addons and can be built right into the browser. This is not at all possible in opera.
So what?
That is the reason for opera’s failure.
Highly popular and highly profitable software product is not a failure by any scale (well, maybe by one of oblivious fanboyism).
Infact, i am surprised that people still find opera to be better than firefox!!
I am surprised how people decide Opera to be failure without having a slightest clue what it can and how it works.
omg… ppl actually read and reply to comments!! lol..
anyway… thanx for d info (@Rarst , Rick).
@JswaroopR
Yeah, be careful – you never know how many chatty techies are lurking on large blogs. ;)
Well i ask those “techies”, opera alternatives for –
1.adblock (blocks ads!!)
2.pdfdownload (converts webpage to pdf)
3.Cooliris
4.Will “FreeDownloadManager” continue to work for opera (as it works for FF and IE)?
5.If 4 doesnt, then i need alternatives for downloading videos from youtube and a download accelerator.
6.Password sync. (between my fedora and windows7)
These 6 and i am good to change to opera!!
(i know there is no alternative for “interclue” addon in firefox – but that isnt very great either).
1.adblock (blocks ads!!)
Built-in since Opera 9. Haven’t subscription-based list tough.
Anyway the coolest adblocker is standalone proxy and http-filter software.
2.pdfdownload (converts webpage to pdf)
Errrr…. any pdf-producing virtual printer.
3.Cooliris
I suppose there is no such thing for Opera, but it’s really rare thing.
4.Will “FreeDownloadManager†continue to work for opera (as it works for FF and IE)?
Dunno, but my favorite DownloadMaster supports Opera and says it can download from Youtube, so I suppose that some download managers can.
6.Password sync. (between my fedora and windows7)
Dunno, but may be password storing file can be synced.
I’m not persuading you to switch, – just talking about solutions.
Also I want to say that it’s nice to have some backup browser for the case if your main fail you … or if you don’t want to risk your main browser with visiting some risky sites :)
Opera has a built-in URL filter that can be configured to block ads. I’ve got a highly effective URLFilter.ini:
http://ronanian.googlepages.com/urlfilter.ini
I may have trimmed out a couple overzealous rules from it since uploading it there.
For PDF making, I find PDFCreator to be far superior to all others, including built-in stuff in various programs and other virtual PDF printers.
http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator
PDFs made with it look correct in any viewer and have very small file size.
I’m not familiar with CoolIris. I googled it and its description reminds me of some websites I’ve seen in the last few months, but anyway…
Opera’s built-in download manager is pretty decent.
No matter which browser I’m using, I prefer the All In One Video Bookmarklet for downloading videos from Youtube and such. It works in all browsers and is just a bunch of javascript that you save in a bookmark on your bookmark bar and click to save the video you’re looking at.
http://1024k.de/bookmarklets/video-bookmarklets.html
There are other solutions. I’ve used Orbit Downloader before, and that integrates with Opera/IE/FF/Chrome/others I don’t remember.
Passwords, bookmarks, notes (in Opera’s built-in notes function), and various other such things are all synchronized automatically between computers with Opera Link.
I use Opera, FF, Chrome, and IE daily. I like to use the right tool for the right job. Opera is my main general-purpose browser, I often have dozens of tabs open. FF is the heavy artillery, it’s got addons for specific heavy-duty purposes. Chrome is kept lean and quick for stuff I need to get in and out of quickly, and for Google apps like maps and docs. IE comes out for a few specific sites.
@Rick
Opera Link does not sync passwords.
Oops, good catch. You’re right.
http://news.cnet.com/i/bto/20081007/Opera_9.6_Opera_Link_540x389.jpg
It syncs: Bookmarks, personal bar, Typed history, Speed Dial (a feature that I don’t use), Notes, and [custom] Searches.
yeah… thnx guys…
Hey how do you configure the adblocker using your urlfilter.ini in opera??
Find the existing urlfilter.ini in your Opera user directory (which may be %appdata%\Opera\Opera\profile ) and replace it with mine. If you find the profile directory but there’s no urlfilter.ini, it may still work, or you may need to make one first. To make one, right-click any page and click “Block Content…”, then click anything at all (it doesn’t matter since you’re going to replace urlfilter.ini anyway).
After trying Firefox for approx. 8 months now, i have decided to return
to IE. After the latest Firefox Update, enough was enough. Mozilla
Firefox has seriously gone down hill and bad reviews are on the
increase. I have added my voice to the negative reviews and also advised
people to stay clear on my own site. I’m very disappointed.
Their support is “Fake” or non-existent and I have been beset with
nothing but problems ever since the update to 3.0.8 I’ve given up
searching for support. With my experience so far, I don’t expect a
response from them.
I once praised Firefox. Now, it sucks. IE8 is much better.
If they’ve become so arrogant that they don’t listen to your customers, its their loss.
some one please help me with the urlfilter.ini for opera 10 beta???
I have all the browsers installed. Opera is very nice and fast. FF has a stack of add ons which help.
I am a Chrome fan – just I like it and it is pretty quick but I feel on my machines Opera is ahead.
The main thing I would like to see is Internet Explorer exterminated.
It is the worse creation of the internet.
I build websites and every single person I know who does hates Explorer. You build a nice site and then something does not work in IE. It works in all the rest but not this bug monster. I cannot believe that MS with all its resources continues to build a browser that does not work properly with css and javascript.
Death to IE – I truly hate the thing
In response to Six gun: I konow how you feel, but I could say exactly the same about Firefox.
Death to FF – I truly hate the thing
I have switched to opera from firefox, and the difference is noticably good. Life is much simpler and faster with opera. Though I dont understand why opera isn’t as famous as firefox..
I feel there is one more feature I need that opera lacks – the password sync. (Though its considered insecure to use a password sync, I am willing to take that risk.)…
The new features in opera 10 beta like opera unite, opera turbo and an improved opera mail…
@JswaroopR
See how much better it is to try things. :) Glad you like it.
>why opera isn’t as famous as firefox
Less marketing and advertising.
>password sync
Deveopers could eaily include that in Opera Link but I guess they decided to keep it more safe rather than more functional.
https://www.ghacks.net/2009/09/10/finally-google-chrome-extensions-turned-on-by-default-in-dev-releases/
(It says google chrome has extensions now…)
so i think google chrome will get better than opera….
(i presume all of you would agree that firefox is heavier than chrome and opera)
PS: Google doc presentation when viewed in opera shows :
“Presentations aren’t fully supported on your browser. Consider upgrading to the latest version, or switching to a supported browser.”