Looking for a powerful Web Browser

[Xav]

That said, it doesn't make an inkling of difference to the average user, because IE is the most popular browser. All pages work with it, or else web designers are sacked.

[G_Morgan]

That said, it doesn't make an inkling of difference to the average user, because IE is the most popular browser. All pages work with it, or else web designers are sacked.

Increasingly less so. Also we are now at the stage where certain markets are predominantly using alternative browsers and as a result increasingly break under IE (or use slow emulation of features other browsers support natively). An important migration mechanism is where a person visits a site clearly designed to take advantage of modern browsers (i.e. heavy use of JS that frankly requires a JIT based JS engine as used by Firefox) and ends up moving because IE is unacceptable at loading that site.

It is strange but supporting Firefox is often more important than supporting IE for a myriad of reasons. Especially that Firefox users are less forgiving of broken web sites (while IE users have a tendency to put up with any old rubbish). Market share is important but the detailed break down of market share is more important than simply who has the most customers.

In any case nearly all web developers use Firefox as their development platform and as a result it will always be well supported.

[Xav]

With things like local intranets, it would make sense to ditch IE if FF was installed on all the local computers, and used by the employees. But for the average masses of people using Windows computers (either because they are too poor to use Macs or too stupid to use Linux) IE remains an easy default. I know many people who simply don't want to change - they are familiar with IE, it works well for them (they must be visiting Web 1.0 sites!).. so why change?

Now that (of course) isn't my mindset, or hopefully anyone else's on this forum. But the fact is, IE is the most popular browser, and to ditch it now would be an unwise move for all public websites.

[G_Morgan]

A large portion of people are resistant to change but the point is that in certain markets Firefox dominates. The web is not a large homogeneous blob. There are markets within markets. If you were to consider Facebook, it is likely to have a far larger Firefox share than the usually presented 30% because it has a much younger market. Firefox market share tends to be driven by younger people. Hence Facebook would give abnormally large relevance to Firefox*.

The same can be said of sites like Reddit or Slashdot. Also any Linux or Mac communities are going to be nearly 100% alternative. These sites often drive adoption of Firefox because they are heavily dependent on its strengths. IE users come in and the ones that stick around are eventually persuaded to move. It isn't necessarily a lack of support but optimisation for alternatives. Any site that makes heavy use of javascript has an implicit optimisation for browsers that have a high end JS engine like Firefox 3.

*Of course Facebook is large enough that not supporting all web browsers would be idiotic.

[Xav]

I can only see the use of JavaScript within pages increasing, so perhaps IE will decrease in popularity? I wish it didn't contain vital stuff to Windows itself, or else Microsoft could eventually drop it, if the web gets too demanding for IE to manage. Then FF will be king.

I heard FF had 15%, but maybe that's just a specific region or something. On a similar note, there was a known compatibility issue between MySpace and the beta of Internet Explorer 8, but it will probably be fixed if it hasn't been already. Even though MySpace is, like, sooo last year..

[G_Morgan]

Firefox share is increasing at a considerable rate (something like 2.5% a year). It hasn't been 15% for some time.

Of course measuring browser usage is extremely difficult. Most people cite advertising measures which are flawed due to pervasive use of ad block in the Firefox community. The advertising figures are only really useful for advertising and are not close to an objective method of measuring browser usage.

[Xav]

Hmm, this 15% was in a recent issue of UK computer magazine, Computer Shopper. They did cite a source, but I can't guarantee it's reliability.

[G_Morgan]

Some advertisers actually undersell Firefox because they hate ad block. At no point do they want to encourage people to target Firefox by giving an accurate figure.

As I said it is near impossible to get an accurate measure but most figures I read put it at around 25%. W3Schools actually has it as the major browser on their site (they separate IE 6 and 7 which is of course sensible, they are different browsers).

[Xav]

I just took a look at my own site's stats:

1.
Internet Explorer
120 50.63%
2.
Firefox
102 43.04%
3.
Safari
7 2.95%
4.
Chrome
5 2.11%
5.
Opera
2 0.84%
6.
LG-KP500 Teleca
1 0.42%

My phone is the LG KP500. I use FF at home, when developing/uploading/refreshing, and my school uses IE, so it's not really a very good cross section of the web. Plus, my site isn't exactly popular yet.

[mendim.]

I'm using FireFox ..
but Chrome is very Good .