Firefox is a fine browser. Really, the current release of any of the major browsers is very good.
Firefox is currently, and comfortably, the #2 browser in market share. A look at the competitive landscape makes me wonder, however, if they have an audience in the long term.
There are probably two kinds of web users — those who make deliberate decisions about browsers and those who don’t. I think both will have less reason to use FF as time goes on.
Let’s look at the latter group. They want things to work, and work well. But they won’t see a real difference in usability between FF, IE, Safari or Chrome. I do and you do — but really, tabs and an address bar.
Sure, their friends or their kids might tell them it’s cool to use something other than IE, but unless those friends actually do the install for them, they won’t bother. They will stick with what their computer vendor gives them — and that means IE or Safari.
For those who care about their web browser, Firefox was the only non-bundled option in town. If you’re passionate about the web, or work in an IT department, Firefox is likely your browser of choice.
But now Google’s Chrome is on the scene, and many underestimate its potential impact.
It’s easy to say, well, now we have four contenders instead of three. Small change. But it’s more than that.
Chrome is the first real competition that FF has seen in the market that it largely created — that for true third-party browsers. There was no competition before. Now there is.
And Chrome has a lot going for it. It’s fast and stable (which is merely cost of entry). It’s got the backing of a major web company, with major resources and incentives to control the platform. It is the default browser on Google’s Android mobile operating system. (Keep in mind that a lot of Safari’s market share is attributable to the popularity of the iPhone. This is the growth market.)
Right now, FF has a very substantial and loyal user base. It’s not going away. I just wonder where its new users will be coming from. Either folks will go for the browser that came with their computer, or they will choose between Chrome and FF — and Google has the muscle.
So here’s my prediction: Firefox is near its peak in market share, and will begin to trend downward by the end of this year.
By this time in 2010, IE will have stabilized due to version 8 (and Windows 7). Safari will gain several percentage points in market share and Chrome usage will at least double from its current small base. That doesn’t leave much room for FF growth.
Update 17 May: added “growth” to clarify.
I’m curious. How does Chrome maybe doubling its share from 1.5% to 3% not leave much room for Firefox. Have you been watching the trends over the last five years? No IE release has done anything to slow Firefox’s growth and so far Chrome hasn’t slowed Firefox’s growth either.
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/2009/05/longterm_browse.html
I don’t think people underestimate Chrome. I believe Mr. Sherman over-estimates the influence Google exerts in the web browser space. Being the dominant search engine does not translate to being the dominant web browser. The web is not a self-contained platform here and now. If you go to http://www.google.com you have to dig around to discover that they even have a web browser available. Sure, word will get around that it’s a decent browser, but Firefox still has plenty of momentum and good will stored up to keep them trending upwards.
Internet Explorer will always be in flux. IE6 is still used due to corporations not upgrading from XP and not permitting IE7 installs, home users not knowing how or bothering to upgrade, and it is also the last IE which can be utilized by people using XP without a valid license. (Perhaps that last one is easy to circumvent, I am not "in the know".)
I believe share for IE 6 and 7 will continue to decline (7 sharply) and IE 8 will not make up the difference. As more people learn about alternate browsers and realize they have a choice, more will continue to exercise that choice, at the expense of IE’s market share.
Thanks Asa. I don’t think FF is threatened by IE. I see IE stabilizing at best. (And, it goes without saying, none of this is a comment on FF’s merits, I use it every day.)
You’re right about the trends over the last few years. I just think they’ll flatten. I think of these things in terms of differentiators (and the audience that responds to them).
FF’s differentiators may become harder to articulate. Its main one, being a higher-quality alternative to the bundled browsers, is no longer a unique characteristic in the presence of Chrome.
That leaves us with extensibility and cross-platform. FF’s add-ons and the community behind them are unrivaled, imho. How much market share is that worth, I wonder? And the cross-platform thing is more interesting to heterogeneous organizations than to individuals.
I realize that FF exists for a better web and not competition for its own sake, so perhaps these are not issues that motivate Mozilla. And of course, my perception of what motivates FF users may be off the mark.
What’s your sense of why new users seek out FF?
Not actually true, regarding unauthorized XP installations. IE7 stopped checking WGA a long time ago, and AFAIK IE8 never has. Main holdouts to IE6, as I see it, are:
1. Corporations that still have a lot of Windows 2000 machines, where IE6 is the last possible version.
2. Corporations that actually have XP, but don’t want to upgrade to IE7 or IE8 due to various issues.
3. Users who don’t *know* they can upgrade, and never allow the installation of auto-updates (IE7, IE8 and SP3 don’t install on shutdown — they have to be selected by the user). These are probably the smallest group — there’s usually a friend or someone who ends up doing it for them.
BTW, and I hope we do not drag this too long, but care to remind us just what kind of weapons were being used on Kurds by Saddams army? Towards the tune of hundreds of thousands of dead Speak about re-written history