Browser War (Round 2)

Posted by: Rea Maor In: Internet and SEO - Thursday, May 31st, 2007

It was a fraudulent email that made some computer user’s heart skips a few beats. A fake email with a realistic box made it believable that Microsoft had purchased Firefox the second most popular browser.

Current Browser Usage Statistics (W3C April 2007)

Internet Explorer 58.9%
Firefox 32.9%
Opera 1.7%
Safari 1.7%

Microsoft Internet Explorer, once used by over 85% of users has been slowly sliding down a slope to a much smaller majority. Microsoft has been struggling to stay ahead, adding features such as a clean sleek look, tabbed browsing and better security. However it is still behind other browsers in functionality and has none of the innovations that have allowed other browser to steal users. Can Microsoft stop its slide? Possibly, Microsoft’s pockets are fat enough it if really wants to gain an edge on a product that does not make it money.

Firefox, the biggest mover, started small at 4.0% in January 2003 and has had steady growth. In April 2007 Firefox popularity reached 32.9%, coming from Internet Explorer with better security and features. One feature Firefox has is add-ons. Add-ons as their name states add functionality but many contain memory leaks, which cause lag no matter how much Ram you have.

Opera, a small buggy program uses a Bit Torrent Protocol built into it is and is one of the fastest browsers available. It has many useful features such as Widgets (Basically Add-ons). A feature I find useful is called mouse gestures. To do a mouse gesture Right click and pull the mouse in a pattern and it performs a task, this may take a little time getting useful but once you learn it, it’s handy. Many websites do not support Opera which is unfortunate because it is pleasant to use.

Flock, a browser for bloggers may gain popularity because the ease of saving data to websites. To start using Flock you register with a blog and log into that blog using flock. Then if you see something you want to add to your blog you simply click right click and press blog this. Click publish and the data has been added to your blog. Flock’s blog it feature is very useful when you’re doing projects and want to save data from a site and have it all sent to one place.

So who will dominate? My gut says that Firefox soon hold a majority but in reality you the user decide, so choose well!

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5 Responses to “Browser War (Round 2)”

  1. Andy Dang Says:
    June 1st, 2007 at 0:51

    Yea, Firefox will eventually dominate. However, I am using Safari right now maybe because it’s apple related, I am an Apple fan. Nice post, and keep it up. I will be following you man, not because you were one of the few first people I met, but because your articles are interesting to read.

    Here’s some thought:

    I thought you couldn’t use GoogleAdsense and Kontera on the same page. It goes against Google policy, no?

    It seems like google only let you post 3 ads on your website, any more and it blanks out. That is how it is for me.

    Last thing, how are you checking out yourself on Alexa ratings? You must have really good ratings. Because I have too few traffic to even get any information on myself.

    Take Care Rea

  2. Rea Maor Says:
    June 1st, 2007 at 2:06

    Hi andy, you’ve asked me some great questions.
    I actually only now figured up that it’s against Google tos, so i should find a better
    Solution, it’s a shame as they pay really well for me.

    As for Google Adsense only displaying 3 ads, yes, this is a common problem.
    I’m trying to find a way to display the 3 Google ads then maybe display other network ads automatically, so far no luck…

    Checking alexa rating is very easy, if you want to check yourself all you have to do is go to http://www.alexa.com/ and use the “site info” field on the right side.
    Also, if you wish to include it on your site you should place a “Widget”
    Just go to http://www.alexa.com/site/site_stats/signup?&qterm=&p=Dest
    Fill up the info and Copy/Paste the info.
    Just keep in mind that alexa’s rating is not even NEAR correct, they are usually based on Tech users that have their Toolbar installed, so Webmaster and Tech sites are more likely to have higher rating no matter the traffic.
    You can install the toolbar yourself and just visit your site several times a day,
    This alone should drop you very quickly to the 500k area
    ask some of your friends to do the same and you’ve got a 100k site

  3. Nafcom Says:
    June 1st, 2007 at 20:22

    I protest against the “buggy” in connection with “Opera”!

    I don’t think it’s buggy at all! And that few pages who do not work properly, most of them work though if you mask the identity. Opera follows the standard pretty much, something the others don’t!

    I really very seldom have to use other browsers instead of Opera! Maybe twice a year or so :)

  4. Andy Dang Says:
    June 1st, 2007 at 20:57

    “I thought you couldn

  5. Rea Maor Says:
    June 2nd, 2007 at 0:42

    @Andy, i actually mailed Google to check up with them,
    it seems you were right and i’m not allowed to, so for the moment i’ve removed them.

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