October 2009 browser stats: Firefox finally passes IE6

[A Guy]

Web developers have waited for what seems like ages for this month to come along. Internet Explorer remains ahead of the rest of the competition, but since month after month it continues to lose ground to all other browsers, Firefox has now finally surpassed IE6, which is easily the most hated version of Microsoft's browser. Firefox's steady gain continues, Safari remains in a nonthreatening third place, Chrome is happily carving out a small niche for itself, and poor Opera can't seem to budge from fifth place. In October, all browsers except for IE and Opera showed positive growth.

Between October and September, Internet Explorer dropped a significant 1.07 percentage points (from 65.71 percent to 64.64 percent) and Firefox moved up a sizeable 0.32 percentage points (from 23.75 percent to 24.07 percent). Safari increased 0.18 percentage points (from 4.24 percent to 4.42 percent) while Chrome once again moved further away from Opera: it gained a worthy 0.41 percentage points (from 3.17 percent to 3.58 percent). Opera slid 0.02 percentage points (from 2.19 percent to 2.17 percent). Although IE's decline seems to be unceasing, the real shame is that the old versions have more share than the newer ones (we can only hope that as Windows 7 gains popularity, this trend will reverse). Still, given that IE6 had 23.30 percent of the market in October, this means that Firefox has now surpassed it.

You can see the market share pie for October 2009, according to Net Applications, at the top of this post. The graph just above shows how things at Ars are very different: Firefox continues to dominate, but the default browsers for Windows and Mac OS X still show their strength, and Chrome's lead over Opera is much more significant at Ars. Compared to last month, IE gained share (possibly due to our review of Windows 7), but so did Firefox. Safari dropped quite a bit, while Chrome and Opera gained.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/11/october-2009-browser-stats-firefox-finally-passes-ie6.ars

A Guy

[Raymond]

Way to go Firefox! We can now call Firefox the most popular browser in the world.

[safeguy]

IE6 should have been dead by now...it's pathetic to see IE6 has bigger market share than the other browsers (Google Chrome, Opera, Safari)...

[heart reaper]

Its mainly coz most of the computers of the world use xp. in which IE6 is pre installed. most users of windows like the things that are there to be there. like the donot want to change any thing in the computer fearing that it may lead to something that they cannot solve.

and believe me, over here, more than 90 % of the users i see, only use IE. due to this fear.

[safeguy]

I know...some of my friends/relatives are like that...

Here's a typical dialogue between me and some of my noob friends/relatives

Safeguy: Try Firefox...it's good.
Friends/Relatives: What for? IE works..why do I need another one?
Safeguy: Firefox has add-ons, better security, etc.
Friends/Relatives: I don't need those...I just want to browse the web
Safeguy: But the web is full of danger...and hackers love targeting IE
Friends/Relatives: But for what would they want to do that?
Safeguy: Get access to your PC and infect your PC..
Friends/Relatives: What do they get by infecting our PC...money? No, right...
Safeguy: Well, it's hard to explain...
Friends/Relatives: Then don't...I will just use IE..simple, no need for you to explain to me anything
Safeguy: Sigh!!!:(

And you should have looked at their faces when I mention 'Opera' or 'Google Chrome'...they would be like 'What's that?' and I would just smile...

[Ceyfer √]

IE6 should have been dead by now

Yes, I do support you on the said statement. It only means that the majority of PC user are still Windows XP fanboys and most of them are fine with IE 6 despite the obsolescence and threats.

Safeguy: But the web is full of danger...and hackers love targeting IE

Now, there will be a sudden shift of attacks, malware authors will make firefox a hard
target for there next nasty releases. I hope I'm wrong.

[kronos_fir18]

I know...some of my friends/relatives are like that...

Here's a typical dialogue between me and some of my noob friends/relatives

Safeguy: Try Firefox...it's good.
Friends/Relatives: What for? IE works..why do I need another one?
Safeguy: Firefox has add-ons, better security, etc.
Friends/Relatives: I don't need those...I just want to browse the web
Safeguy: But the web is full of danger...and hackers love targeting IE
Friends/Relatives: But for what would they want to do that?
Safeguy: Get access to your PC and infect your PC..
Friends/Relatives: What do they get by infecting our PC...money? No, right...
Safeguy: Well, it's hard to explain...
Friends/Relatives: Then don't...I will just use IE..simple, no need for you to explain to me anything
Safeguy: Sigh!!!:(

And you should have looked at their faces when I mention 'Opera' or 'Google Chrome'...they would be like 'What's that?' and I would just smile...

HAHHAHAH...i like ur style! same goes to me here...talking this thing to noobs people make me tired!.....hahahaha....damn they didn't know which one is better..always go to IE....noobs...hahaha.....WAY TO GO FIREFOX!

[heart reaper]

There have been many browser wars in this forum. which mainly included IE, FF, OPERA. And i always supported OPERA.

OPERA RULES!!, no offence.

[hellnoire]

Anything that isn't IE, I will always recommend. I don't trust MS, even though I've been using 7 so much.

[heart reaper]

LOL!!

@ I don't trust MS,