Firefox 3.5 Overtakes IE7, At Least for Now

by Justin Ryan - Dec. 22, 2009Comments (0)

In the beginning, there was Netscape and its Navigator — perhaps not exactly the beginning, but close enough. Then came Microsoft and Internet Explorer, launching the first browser war, and eventually, the death of Netscape and a massive anti-trust trial for Microsoft. IE has retained the market dominance it gained by Netscape's downfall to the present day.

There are challenges to the market leader, however — serious challengers, particularly Mozilla's Firefox, which has steadily gained against IE over the past five years. Like the mythical son who avenges his father, Firefox — a descendant of the Netscape codebase — appears to have finally won at least a symbolic victory, as Firefox 3.5 has overtaken Internet Explorer 7 as the world's most popular browser.

According to statistics published by market-tracker StatCounter, Firefox 3.5 is now the browser of choice for more users than any other browser version in the world. Before champagne corks start popping and confetti falls from the sky, it is important to note that Firefox 3.5 is the most popular browser, followed by Internet Explorer 7 — the statistics break down market share by version, rather than grouping all versions of a particular browser together. Still, the numbers are impressive: over 20% of the market is using Firefox 3.5, quite an accomplishment for a product that has less than six months on the shelves.

Though Firefox 3.5 has overtaken IE7 as the top version, Internet Explorer maintains its — rapidly diminishing — hold on the overall market, with its combined userbase comprising some 55% of the market, down from a high of 70% just over a year ago. Firefox continues to steam ahead, taking 32%, up from a low of 23% last November. Google's Chrome, the new kid on the block, has seized around 5%, while the Mac standard Safari has lost a small amount of ground, totaling out at roughly 3%. The other notable player in the game, Opera, trails the pack with a 2% market share.

Though industry experts attribute Firefox's sudden surge to users slowly shifting from IE7 to the now-third place IE8, the victory, however fleeting, seems a prophetic one, heralding an eventual reversal of the first war's bitter — and heavily litigated — end.