Following a year of doom and gloom for Firefox, I’m very happy to report that the past 3 months have seen Mozilla’s browser bounce back to at least a respectable market share.
I was going to say that it has been a topsy-turvy year for Firefox but, in truth, it’s been more a year of steady decline – that is, until the past 3 months:
As you can see from the above screenshot, Firefox’s market share has risen by more than 4% since it reached its lowest point of 7.69% in August. What will be even more pleasing for Mozilla is that its browser looks like finishing off 2016 with an improved market share over the 11.42% at the beginning of the year.
Of course, Chrome is still way ahead overall, and Internet Explorer’s market share is expected to continue decreasing as more users migrate to Windows 10. Microsoft must be disappointed with Edge’s lack of impact on the desktop browser scene but, really, they only have themselves to blame. Releasing an underdeveloped browser was probably not the smartest of moves – even though Edge now, finally, supports extensions, they are still far and few between. Personally, I don’t think Edge is anywhere near as bad as a lot of people make out, but then, I am a diehard Firefox user.
Desktop Operating System Market Share
The stats pretty much speak for themselves; Windows 7 remains by far the most used operating system and, following a steady increase throughout the year while it was free, Windows 10’s market share has now leveled out. While both Windows 8.1 and XP are slowly but inexorably heading for extinction, personally, I can’t believe that XP is still accounting for almost 9% market share. I suspect that would be largely down to the corporate sector, but still, using an outdated and unsupported operating system connected to the net is not good practice for anyone.
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They are learning from their mistakes, they are really pushing for gold, now.
I use my weak laptop as a benchmark and their e10s is amazing. The only problem is that not all my add-ons are supported, so I have to rely on Firefox Nightly 53 or Firefox Aurora 52 to have e10s activated.
It is more interesting how much Internet Explorer has fallen and that fall is not being taken over by Edge. How is it such a big company sucks at figuring out what users want in a browser? They have the advantage of every new installation of Windows has one or more of their browsers. Yes, there are those out there, and the number is huge, who never check out other browsers. If you take away the chickens, Microsoft’s numbers would look even worse.
It boggles my mind, that when they had the chance to regain glory with Edge, they did such a poor job of developing a new browser.
Glad to see FF is gaining some steam. It’s been my favorite browser for several years now. My primary reason for not using Edge is because it doesn’t play well with Sandboxie.
I love Firefox.
Still using FF on my W7 and it is working just fine.
Will you guys quit beating on my 32 bit Win XP…I’ve got 10 on my 64 bit laptop, but only because they don’t make batteries anymore for my 32 bit laptop.
I agree. My XP running consistently for more than 2 years now and no sign of any problems, whatsoever. Its faster, safer, easier and much better than any of the newer Windows systems (yes, I have tested them all). So much for all the doomsday profets out there. And do not bother flaming me; I am not listening. All I’ve done in the past 2 years, was spend time delousing family and friends newer Windows systems.
Yep. Still got my favorite XP running and I’d wager it didn’t get counted in those stats. I use my Win 7 machine most days, but XP is still my favorite.
I haven’t abandoned FF either.
Firefox is the only browser I can keep updated and use on my XP installation. IE8 still works, but not very well.
Not to beat a dead horse, but in the same time frame Firefox gained a few percent Chrome also gathered up another 5% or so. This doesn’t say much for Firefox which may have gotten a few converts from IE and Edge users, but didn’t take away from Chrome. Firefox has pushed back of late in mobile but nobody knows if that holds or we see users go back to Chrome? I for one do know that the numbers are looking more positive for Firefox than IE, Edge or Opera. We are basically down to two browsers now. Chrome and Firefox, and the rest are insignificant in market share.