Firefox Up, Explorer Down

The browser wars are back. Over 19 million people have downloaded Mozilla Firefox and this is starting to put a dent in Internet Explorer usage. Mozilla Firefox currently has a 5% market share according to a recent WebSideStory study. This is an increase of nearly 1% since December. Firefox's online usage share grew from 3.03 percent to 4.06 percent. This compares to a gain of 13 percent during the previous month, from Oct. 8 to Nov. 5. WebSideStory's sample size consists of more than 30 million daily Internet users from more than 200 countries. These visitors pass through more than 20,000 sites worldwide using WebSideStory's on-demand Web analytics services From "Firefox's gains are clearly accelerating," said Rand Schulman, WebSideStory's chief marketing officer. "Much of it has to do with the release of Firefox's version 1.0 on November 9, after several months of offering a preview version. Firefox's stated goal of gaining 10 percent of the market over the next year no longer seems unattainable." Firefox has made significant gains and Microsoft's Internet Explorer's usage share continues to fall in the United States. Between Nov. 5 and Dec. 3, Internet Explorer's share dropped 1.09 percentage points to 91.80 percent, according to WebSideStory. This compares with a 0.32 percentage point drop the previous month. Since June 4, 2004, when IE's usage share first began to drop due to security concerns, IE has lost a total of 3.68 percentage points. Here are a Murdok | Breaking eBusiness News Your source for investigative ebusiness reporting and breaking news.