Submitted by aross on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 09:56
Given our focus on skills development and outreach for open source, it's no surprise that 65% of browsers coming to FOSSLC are Firefox. (though it would be nice to see a few more IE users sniffing at our site as they're who we're trying to help!)
W3Schools make their browser statistics available. It shows that Firefox leads with 46.4% of the market and growing. No doubt this population is skewed towards developers.
The data we've seen shows Firefox use at just over 20% for the general population of Internet users.
So here's a thought - are developers innovators/early adopters and thus we can expect to see a rise in Firefox use? I would expect so based on the assumption that developers are technology-savvier than the general population and are changing browsers for a reason. This will be interesting to follow over time.
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skewed Firefox adoption numbers
Most web developers are told to develop for Firefox and then accommodate IE due to the fact that Firefox follows the W3C standards more closely. Developers also like the availability of Firefox plug-ins, such as Firebug, to have more access to the inner-workings of the browser. With more browser state transparency and a more exposed API, it makes it much easier to develop and test client-side code. IE's developer toolbar is just not as useful as Firebug.
Firefox Adoption Rate
I think most surveys or polls that show firefox gaining significant ground on IE must be heavily skewed. I do not dispute that if you take a survey of the general public, you find Firefox usage at 30%-40% or so.
But...
I'd like to know who's being polled. FF is used mainly by linux enthusiasts, home users, hobby/enthusiast/part time developers.
But when it comes to the workplace, IE must be at least 90% of the market because corporate america is unabashedly IE by corporate policy. Web Developers working on public websites are indeed well advised to develop first for FF and then IE for public website development, but most corporate development is aimed at company intranet application development, and those applications are generally more important than a company's outside website. We can do without the public advertising brochure for a few days. We can't do without General Ledger, Accounts Payable and PAYROLL! (woot! :-)
For instance, I am the developer of a dozen or more of my company's core business intranet applications that run in a browser. And they are ASP and ASP.NET applications that require IE. For that reason my company - like just about all corporations in America, have standardized on IE as the company's official browser.
The only reason we care about FF at all is that people cruising the internet looking at our public website may come in with FF, Opera, Safari, whatever. But that public site is only a very small portion of the web applications that we develop. Mission Critical stuff is what runs the company on the INSIDE of the forewall, not the outside marketing stuff.
And most often, IT Development (which is where I work) will keep and manage the company's business intranet applications in-house and farm out the public website work to an advertising agency or marketing firm. That whole area is kept completely separate from the company's core business apps.
I wish it weren't so, and it IS changing. But very slowly. Plugins like Firebug are very helpful and make my job a lot easier. However, a rollout of 1000 installations of firefox when each of those 1000 pc's already have a perfectly usable IE already installed and ready to go? That ain't happenin'.
So, if your poll includes the general public, including home users, academic and school users, and the vast sea of "evening entertainment" web surfers, then yes... that number is likely much higher in Firefox's favour.
But in Coporate America, the firefox penetration threshold has gotta be almost single digits. Maybe 10% tops.
Grandma uses Firefox. Corporate America uses Internet Explorer.
._.
Good point.
That's a good point. Thank you for the comment.
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