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Internet Explorer has come under renewed competition from alternative web browsers according to an online poll. Uptake of open source browsers grew six per cent in the last month and forced a marginal decline for Microsoft’s market leader. The Mozilla Foundation said that IE’s slump of 0.8 per cent had certainly been powered by a three per cent jump in Firefox products, with equal gains made by Mozilla itself. Figures show IE still maintains 92.9 per cent of the market but showed a marked difference from its summer lead in June when it claimed 95.5 per cent of users. The decline represents the fifth monthly slump, prompting analysts to describe rivalry from alternative browsers as a ‘vanguard’ instead of a “flash in a pan.” Observers say alternatives such as Mozilla and Firefox, now officially the second most popular browser, represent the only serious contenders to Microsoft. This emerges from market observer WebSideStory, which notes uptake of Firefox has been booming for five months in a row, it is estimated that over seven million downloads have been made. Earlier this year, developers of the browser launched a tough marketing campaign that meant within six hours more than 107,000 browsers were downloaded. It is understood more than 10,000 users have so far donated a total of more than $250,000 for advertising the official launch of Firefox in the New York Times. Firefox experts say the daily paper will run the first ever full-page advert, created and funded exclusively by the open-source community. The growth of exploits found in IE prior to SP2 may also have helped Firefox make gains due to the ‘security improvements’ in the browser - it does not support Active X or VB Scripts. The accompanying service of ‘Thunderbird’, Mozilla’s email client, is a real contender to replace Outlook or Outlook Express. With a built in junk mail filter, highly configurable views and the obvious potential that extensions can bring this program also has the potential to grow. Developers working on the release of Firefox 1.0 believe their product will reach 10 per cent US penetration by the end of 2005. Up until now the browser has only been available as a pre-release (1.0PR) and today will see the release of the full 1.0 release. Users of the forum estimate it will be available for download at 4pm today. Geoff Johnston, analyst at WebSideStory, said "It's interesting that we're seeing Microsoft's IE continuing to move backwards. This summer, after just six weeks of decline, we didn't know if it was a trend or just a fad," he added. "It now looks like a trend. And if it is a fad, it's a really long fad." Nov 9, 2004 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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