Internet Explorer’s lost dominance

Tady Walsh — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:03:13 +0000

So it’s official. The latest stats have been posted on W3 Schools and they show that Firefox has finally taken the lead over Internet Explorer as the most used web browser in the world. Granted, part of this fact is due to the current ABIE (anything but Internet Explorer) vibe that has long been felt, especially within the developer and web geek community, but these are the first statistics that show that the IE family collectively is less dominant than Firefox alone. Part of this fall can be attributed to the relatively speedy uptake of Google Chrome along with the slow, but steady increase in use of Safari (this mostly caused by Apple Laptops being used in academia. Expect this figure to spike again in September). There is no doubt in my mind that the increase in Chrome users contributes more to the decline in IE than that of Firefox.

So what does this bode for IE 8? Well it’s early days yet and with 0.6% of the vote, it’ll be a long time before this has an effect on the global statistics of any real consequence. Obviously, once Windows 7 is complete and starts to ship both as an upgrade and as an install on every and all new pc laptops and home computers this figure too will spike, but one would expect this to have the effect of replacing IE 6/7 as opposed to stealing from Firefox.

The contributing factors to this in the future are too numerous to correctly predict. Will Windows 7 be a success? Will Firefox slow down? Will Google continue to grow? What affect will Steve Job’s health play on the uptake of Apple computers? All of this is for another day’s debate, but at the moment, Firefox have taken the browser lead. The big question is will they hold onto it?

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Internet Explorer’s lost dominance