Firefox Crosses 500 Million Download Mark
Posted: March 21, 2009
Filed under: Pro Tips
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Sometime late February, Firefox downloads crossed the 500 million threshold, up from the 400 million mark in September 2007, indicating an average rate a bit shy of 20 million per month at present. It’s an arbitrary but interesting milestone for the open-source Web browser, whose development is overseen by Mozilla but that’s also developed and extended by a large number of outside programmers.
Firefox has spread widely in the years since its release. Browsers Statistics registered unprecedented increase from 6.8% market share in 2005 to 36.5% in Feb 2008.
The project originally was named Phoenix to symbolize a rising from the ashes of the Netscape open-source browser project that began in 1998 but languished for many years as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer solidified its lead.
Now Firefox programmers are working on version 3, which brings performance improvements and interface changes, and Mozilla also is working on a mobile version of the browser for handheld devices.
Firefox is a highly recommended alternative to the Internet Explorer browser on all Windows computers, providing a standards-compliant platform for a more secure and faster surfing experience.
IE is known for its insecurity issues for years. The fact that it is pre-installed on all Windows PC sold means that all websites developed should still be tested to ensure that it runs well on IE, which unfortunately is not very Web Standards-compliant.
However, since FireFox is gaining momentum, do ensure your websites also looks its best on Firefox as well.
Other great browser alternatives available are Opera and Safari.
The point is, as a user, we have other choices besides IE. As a website owner, we need to ensure our websites are compatible with all the other popular browsers out there (particularly Firefox) for a positive user experience, as more and more users are using browsers other than IE to browse the internet.
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