IE, Safari, Flock, Firefox, Opera, Maxthon. With so much competition raging amongst web browsers, Microsoft Internet Explorer still retains the lion’s share of the pie. Here are several reasons why.
- As long as Microsoft Windows is the leading OS for hundreds of millions of desktop PCs, IE will always come bundled with it. Nothing beats out of the box distribution. Just look at why Safari is the Queen Bee of all Macs — because it’s also out of the box. Unless some dominant OS (like Ubuntu) bundles a competing browser such as Firefox, they won’t stand a chance.
- Some important sites are still just for Internet Explorer. You want online banking? More or less, you’ll need to fire up IE. You want to pay utility bills with your credit card online? IE again.
- ActiveX. ActiveX. ActiveX.
- For a sizable number of internet surfers, that shiny, blue letter “e” on the desktop still represents the WWW. Just check out your local internet cafe.
- Some large companies and global corporations are eternally married to Internet Explorer. Call centers like Convergys have thousands of seats and each desktop has to have the same softwares and IE is one of them. They have to be the same versions too.
Besides, Microsoft is still trying to improve the browser (well, only after Firefox was reported to be inching closer) with IE7 and the alleged development of IE8.
Twitter: mikkogozalo
says:
Mozilla Firefox surpasses the number of Internet Explorer users on my site. Don’t know why. Hehe.
It could be because most of my visitors are Mindanao Bloggers, and bloggers are more technical people so they prefer Firefox.
Twitter: AjaLapus
says:
Children should be taught well, too. All my pre-ten year old cousins were taught to use Firefox that they look for it whenever they feel playing web-based and flash-based games.
Never Ending Browser Wars…
Even after years, IE’s still winning the “usage” share, but it’s not the “King” anymore in general.
IMO, IE7′s not a headache anymore. In fact I prefer IE7 for casual browsing than the bloated FF. Really, that’s right.
Twitter: techathand
says:
At my site.. Firefox user is more.. Perhaps tech visitors loves to use Firefox
Firefox is “bloated” ? How so ?
I agree, IE has been the more domainant browser among people since it’s bundled with the leading OS: WinXP either WinVista. But users switch to Mozilla FF due to the security it has to offer and customizability it gives to the end-users.
Twitter: sylv3rblade
says:
I switch browsers every so often-IE7,FF,Opera.
Firefox 2 is too much of a memory hog for my aging laptop though. One of the reasons why I use Opera there.
Same on my blog, FF users outnumber IE. I use 3 browsers depending upon the need and as already outline by Sir Abe. IE for online banking, (that one-time I applied for BDO account), FF for general browsing, Safari for blogging.
its like adobo(ie) vs. cordon blue(ff)
I stil like firefox. Dozens of plugins plus skinnable. Oh, I notic e this firefox download manager is faster than IE’s (I don’t know why)
Twitter: AjaLapus
says:
Firefox is never bloated. It is actually the user who would make it as such (with Extensions, et al) It’s just a memory hog in Windows sometimes… But I use Linux most of the time, and it works perfectly fast on that platform. Maybe the problem is with Windows.
The majority of users on my sites are Firefox users. It maybe because they majority are probably techie.
I am just having Firefox problems right now and using Opera.
@Hamilton Chua: Check your task manager
@Aja: Even firefox crashes a lot on my linux installation or am i just unlucky w/ FF?
I use FF 98% of the time. Browsing, programming, css, firebug, web developer and some other stuff and it’s amazing, no doubt about that. But to save resources for other applications. I need to close or restart the browser to speed things up again particularly on an aging pc.
Now, if I’m not a member of the non-tech population who just use browsers for surfing and email. I’ll be using IE7 instead.
This is similar to:
Colgate for toothpaste
Xerox for photocopier
Walkman for portable cassette player
People see Internet Explorer (blue E) as the internet itself not a browser.
IE7…is good for internet cafés and its very reliable for the begginners.
~then at the
MFF…is also useful for personal use and its very easy to use for bookmarks,feeds,check spelling and etc.
Twitter: jaypee
says:
I totally agree with Aja. The basic install of Firefox is not bloated. When the user adds many extensions/add-ons, then it becomes bloated. IE loads faster because it’s integrated with the OS, but using Firefox in Linux (Ubuntu), I have no problems whatsoever and it loads and renders pages very fast even with only 256 MB of RAM.
Sometimes I also use Flock. I keep IE and Opera for testing purposes only.
Twitter: mparazgmail.com
says:
ActiveX is probably on its way out, replaced by Silverlight. Which runs on Firefox.
Twitter: jaypee
says:
Btw, Maxthon is nothing different from IE. It’s basically IE using a different name. It’s like a wolf on sheep’s clothing. Hehe
Twitter: sylv3rblade
says:
@kuya Jaypee
umm.. isn’t Maxthon like what Firefox is to Netscape?
Maxthon started from a custom IE shootoff then when the developer shared his code, people started pitching stuff in so while the base of the browser is still IE, it’s deviant enough from it’s source to be called a derivative.
@j4s0n : I guess you meant Firefox is a “resource hog” NOT “bloated”. I believe we *nix users prefer “top”.
go firefox! add-ons are really helpful. i *heart* firebug.
a lot of browsers aren’t build for web 2.0 websites. sad…
of course it’ll be king, silly. the fact doesn’t have to be overstated. the company who has pile-drived itself over a large user base equally assumes the biggest leverage and gets to make the competition eat whorls of dust.
though we’ve always fetished about how a cool, dashing, swashbuckling underdog gets to unseat the tyrant at some point, it’s always the one with the droves and droves of users (whether sympathetic or apathetic) that gets to put his fat butt on the throne (and dictate which browser lands on the desktop)
Same here, most visitors of my sites are using FF.