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The State of Affairs for Web Browsers
The Blog Herald
The Blog Herald

The State of Affairs for Web Browsers

by
April 19, 2007

Have you checked the state of affairs for web browsers lately? According to Browser Market Share for March 2007, Internet Explorer still leads but Mozilla Firefox is gaining ground steadily.

According to the stats, here are some of the most popularly used web browsers and their market share:

  1. Microsoft Internet Explorer – 78.57%
  2. Firefox – 15.10%
  3. Safari – 4.51%
  4. Opera – 0.80%
  5. Netscape – 0.70%
  6. Mozilla – 0.18%
  7. Microsoft Pocket Internet Explorer – 0.03%
  8. PSP (PlayStation Portable) Internet Browser – 0.02%
  9. Danger Web Browser – 0.02%

According to their Browser Share Trend, while usage of Internet Explorer has dropped about 5% in the past year, Firefox has increased about the same. Other web browsers such as Safari, Opera, and Netscape have flatlined with very little change over the past year.

I would have thought that with the ease and flexibility of Firefox, more people would convert and give Microsoft a run for their browser money.

Think back to when you made the switch. And if you haven’t, why not?

I remember thinking that I could only have one web browser. That I had to give up Internet Explorer in order to use Firefox. It’s not true. Just like you have have multiple versions of other programs, you can have more than one web browser.

I also thought that nothing could beat Internet Explorer, so why bother. Besides, I put so much blood, sweat, and tears into learning how to design in Internet Explorer, all the hacks, tweaks, and battling the dumb margin and padding business – so why put more energy into learning to design for another browser?

Mozilla FirefoxAll excuses. Switching to Firefox was the smartest online decision I ever made. I now have more control over my browsing experience. I can browse smarter and faster than ever before. It helps me blog by allowing me to open multiple tabs for my article research. I can use a variety of Firefox extensions (now called “add-ons”) which improve my web design efforts and blog writing and publishing. How did I ever get along without it before?

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So what about you? What stopped you from switching to Firefox? Why did you? And if you haven’t, why not? What stops you now?

And if you aren’t using Firefox or Internet Explorer, what are you using and why?

Lorelle VanFossen blogs about blogging and WordPress, and exclusively uses Firefox, on .

The author of Lorelle on WordPress and the fast-selling book, Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging, as well as several other blogs, Lorelle VanFossen has been blogging for over 15 years, covering blogging, WordPress, travel, nature and travel photography, web design, web theory and development extensively as web technologies developed.

View Comments (9)

  • Firefox is fine and all on Windows, but their Mac version is just awful. It’s slow and clumsy.

    I use it when I want to run Firebug, but in those instances it’s basically a standalone debugging application, not a general-purpose browser.

  • I was very hesitant to make the switch from IE6 to Firefox a couple of years ago, but finally made the switch during one of the 0.9.X versions, and haven’t looked back since.

    Internet Explorer 7 is still installed on my main machine, although I hardly ever open it–maybe once a day. Maybe. I find myself using Opera much more than I ever use IE, although I have a lot of issues with the user experience of Opera.

    Oh well, Firefox for the win. If you are using Windows and haven’t made the switch yet, do it now. However, I see no reason to use Firefox over Safari for the Mac. Safari is an excellent browser.

  • 1996. Tried IE. Tried Netscape. Stayed with Netscape. It was generation 4 of browsers, Netscape had mail client, better looking, and vas faster.
    Few months later, tried Opera. Opera 4 was lightweight and fast as hell. Stayed with opera until generation 8.
    2005. I switched to Firefox. Extensions are extensions are power are fun. I missed Opera’s RSS and mail integration, but I have everything else. Google handles feeds and mail anyway….

    Using IE is like sitting on a skateboard on highway.

  • I made the switch to Firefox a few years back and love it. I love the tabbed browsing and think that it displays web pages better than IE6. Having said that, now that IE 7 is out, I find myself using it a lot more. IE 7 is great improvement. The tabbed browsing isn’t as nice as Firefox, but I love how it renders fonts. Using IE 7 on a PC feels almost like a Mac. Seriously.

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