Firefox to take 10% of total browser usage? (19)

1 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-03-01 07:13 ID:Heaven

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1003284

After its official launch on November 9, 2004, Firefox was on track to reach its goal of 10% of the Web browser market by mid-year. But a recent slowdown in growth and a security vulnerability has the media buzzing as to whether or not the browser can reach its goal of 10% of the market.

I think even with less security vunerabilities being found with other browsers, Firefox is definately on the way to being a bigger favourite, if the continous efforts of spreadfirefox.com are seen. Also, I didnt see Safari in the list of web browsers towards te bottom of that article, I wonder what the fuck gives with that.

2 Name: Albright!LC/IWhc3yc 2005-03-01 20:17 ID:tUQpbAnY

Perhaps they were only counting Windows browsers. If Mac users are 5% of the market, and (I'll be conservative here) half of them are using Safari, that should have put it on the chart...

3 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-03-01 20:40 ID:9EEBJnv7

What's the most common browser on the Mac platform, then? Is it Safari?

I don't use a Mac and I don't know the Mac world. I've heard that MSIE is now available for the Mac but I don't know how popular it is.

4 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-03-01 22:27 ID:dFxmMA7E

Internet Explorer uses a totally different rendering engine on Macs than it does on Windows. I've only seen it a few times, but its ability to reder standards-compliance test pages rivals that of Mozilla. Since they're so different, IE for Mac shouldn't be counted as the same browser as IE for Windows.

Even in the surveys that list Safari apart from "others", Konqueror isn't listed. Why?

5 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-03-01 22:28 ID:Heaven

s/reder/render/

6 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-03-02 11:54 ID:co9pNiDy

>>4

Because hardly anybody uses it?

7 Name: Albright!LC/IWhc3yc 2005-03-02 21:41 ID:tUQpbAnY

>>3: Yes, Safari (or other browsers that use the WebCore rendering engine) is far and away the most popular contemporary browser on the Mac.

And yes, IE for Mac was superior to its Windows counterpart -- it handled transparent PNGs correctly, among other things. However, it is no longer being developed, and is pretty much only used by those who don't have OS X 10.2 (which came out three years ago, I believe) or later and therefore can't use Safari. Safari, aside from still being developed, is more standards-compliant than IE for Mac and has tabbed browsing, a Google search box, and other nifty advantages.

8 Name: Albright!LC/IWhc3yc 2005-03-02 21:48 ID:tUQpbAnY

...And regarding Gecko/Mozilla-based browsers on the Mac, Camino is more popular than Firefox. It's been around longer, and it uses a Mac OS X-standard interface instead of that XUL nonsense that Firefox hasn't shrugged off. So form elements on web pages actually look and function like OS X form elements instead of Windows ones being "faked" on the Mac... It does make a difference.
http://www.mozilla.org/products/camino/

Some people still prefer Camino, but I find Safari to be "snappier."

9 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-03-03 14:47 ID:co9pNiDy

>>8

I'd have thought that these days most XUL elements would use native widgets. At least it's done that on Windows for a long time - is the Mac version not doing that?

10 Name: Albright!LC/IWhc3yc 2005-03-05 06:33 ID:tUQpbAnY

http://nub.iichan.net/b/res/4975.html
That's Safari on the left and Firefox on the right. You can see the Safari page uses standard OS X widgets, but on Firefox... ***ewww.*** Camino renders just like Safari.

If you were referring to the user interface of the browser instead of web page form elements, those look more similar to a proper Cocoa-native program, but they still behave a bit differently, so I still think they're being "faked." For example, default buttons don't "throb," and while you can customize the toolbar like a Cocoa program, the controls to do so open in another window instead of a pop-down "sheet," and there's other things that just feel "wrong." So yes, I believe Firefox (or, at least, the Mac version) is at least partially reliant on XUL still.

11 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-03-06 13:17 ID:bh+QeO83

Hmm, seems the Mac implemention of XUL is lagging behind. On Windows, Firefox uses the native widgets. You can see the difference between Firefox running on 2k and XP here, for instance: http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200409/styling_form_controls/

12 Name: Albright!LC/IWhc3yc 2005-03-07 04:50 ID:tUQpbAnY

Hmm, but are you sure those "native widgets" aren't just XUL widgets being "faked" to look Windows-like, just as they are in the OS X interface (not counting web page forms)?

By the way, applying styles to form elements is a mortal sin, and web browsers are right to ignore them...

13 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-03-07 13:37 ID:co9pNiDy

No, they explicitly state that they use the native code to at least draw the elements. The input handling is done by XUL, though.

14 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-03-10 15:53 ID:zLHNaL2d

Firefox has already greatly exceeded it's 10% share target
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

15 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-03-10 19:05 ID:gByCzsMk

>>14
Where is this data from?
If it's gathered from W3C visitors, I'm guessing they're more browser-savvy then most of the internet.

16 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-03-10 19:37 ID:bh+QeO83

>>15

If it was browser-savvy users, Firefox would have a far bigger share than 10%. Last time I checked wakaba.c3.cx, I had well over 50% Firefox.

17 Name: hotaru!hoTarufiRE!!Cizp3pu2 2005-03-10 22:20 ID:MEZQT4uJ

>>15-16
i'm my xanga i'm seeing about 9% share for firefox... significantly lower than the 60-65% i was seeing about 3 months ago... and most of the people who visit my xanga are definitely not browser-savvy users... "BallBustinGangsta", "x0xadriennex0x1393", "luv_me_forwhoI_am", "anotherbutterfly", "adn_newrad19", "gott_icee", "babydshorty", "cjms93", and "who_knows_876" are a few of the firefox users...

18 Name: Squeeks!!XjdwLWBy (Admin) 2005-03-10 22:38 ID:Heaven

When the other tech for this server gets of his arse and configures our stats etc I'll give you a figure, but as far as I know, the majority is firefox, along with the odd Safari or IE user.

19 Name: Albright!LC/IWhc3yc 2005-03-11 07:37 ID:tUQpbAnY

>along with the odd Safari [...] user.

Aw, come on. I'm not that strange once you get to know me.

(Sorry. Couldn't resist.)

This thread has been closed. You cannot post in this thread any longer.