Browser market shares from Net Applications
I've been recommendng people to try Firefox since before it got that name. More recently, of course, I've been suggesting they upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 to IE7, whether they use IE or not, partly for the same reason: to increase their level of security in Windows XP. Has that sort of response hurt Firefox? Happily, it seems not. According to a round-up of numbers at Information Week, Firefox use has continued to grow.
Microsoft is pushing out IE7 as a security upgrade, and now has more than 100 million installations, so IE7 is on the way to replacing IE6. In terms of US usage, IE7 is now above 25%. However, as IW says:
Net Applications' data put IE 7's market share during December at 18.3%, up dramatically from November's 8.8%. But IE 6 lost more than IE 7 gained, dropping from 70.9% in November to 60.7% the next month.
The Firefox "dip" in the above graph is real, but it represents a shift from Firefox 1.5 to Firefox 2.0, and Firefox 2 isn't shown on Net Applications' graph. Mozilla is also expected to try an auto-update to Firefox 2, though with less justification.
