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Firefox's Market Share Hits 28% in Europe

Posted by Zonk on Wed Jan 30, 2008 04:21 PM
from the everything-is-upside-down-in-the-old-country dept.
Mozilla The Internet
Mitchell's Boy Toy writes "Firefox's market share has hit 28.0% in Europe as of December 2007, according to a French web metrics firm. That's a 20.7% increase from the beginning of 2007. 'Finland currently has the highest Firefox market share in Europe with 45.4 percent, followed by Slovenia with 44.6 percent and Poland with 42.4 percent.' IE share fell to just 66.1% in December, a 0.9 point loss in just a month. It should also be noted that Firefox's success could spell trouble for Opera's antitrust complaint: 'Firefox's continued success in Europe may undermine some of the arguments made by Norwegian browser maker Opera in an antitrust complaint filed against Microsoft in December of last year. Opera accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the web browser market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows.'"
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[+] Your Rights Online: EU Launches Yet Another Antitrust Probe Into Microsoft 373 comments
Connor writes "The EU has announced a new wide-ranging antitrust probe into Microsoft's practices of bundling software with Windows, as well as whether its products interoperate sufficiently with competitors' products. 'The first area of investigation will concern interoperability of some of Microsoft's products, including Office 2007, the .NET Framework, and some of Microsoft's server products.' The other prong of the investigation is a response to Opera's antitrust complaint, but will look at other products, too. 'The Commission will also look at desktop search and Windows Live as well in addition to other products. The EC says that its investigation will "focus on allegations that a range of products have been unlawfully tied to sales of Microsoft's dominant operating system."'"
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  • shouldn't undermine Opera's case (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yagu (721525) * <`moc.liamg' `ta' `ugayay'> on Wednesday January 30 2008, @04:23PM (#22238908) Journal

    The summary suggests that Firefox's success could come at Opera's expense:

    'Firefox's continued success in Europe may undermine some of the arguments made by Norwegian browser maker Opera in an antitrust complaint filed against Microsoft in December of last year. Opera accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the web browser market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows.

    Isn't the issue with Microsoft more correctly framed that Microsoft is using its monopoly and dominance of its OS to stifle competition in other markets, in this case, specifically browsers? I believe that if Firefox is actually close to 30% market share, Microsoft's position in browsers wouldn't (or would barely) meet the threshold for monopoly. It's their position in their OS. Opera's case shouldn't be at risk.

    • Yep,I agree. I don't know how that was missed, but I'm with you Yagu.

      Even if Firefox had a 100% market share, the issue is the bundling of the browser, not the market share. All the other things that result from IE bundling are just results to that.

      Where in contrast linux usually comes with a few browsers so people can pick what they want. MS is screwed because even if they included FF in addition to IE, you still can neither get rid of IE completely and also it would add more bloat to the size of windows i

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by poetmatt (793785)
          actually, as much as I don't really care for opera, I can see it doing better if FF gets dominant market share due to people then making websites that aren't IE optimized. When all browsers are created equal its just flavor preference. In those situations I suspect that FF and Safari will be tied for dominant browser (just my own prediction)
          Additionally if I remember right early versions of opera had problems rendering things right as well, which would be resolved by IE taking a nosedive into some concrete

        • I really don't feel bad for Opera. I mean, they're in a market selling a product where alternatives exist for free - and really good alternatives.
          Huh? Opera is a free download for PCs. As for mobile, Firefox isn't even able to compete there (and Opera Mini is free).

    • Re:shouldn't undermine Opera's case (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bunratty (545641) on Wednesday January 30 2008, @04:32PM (#22239036)
      Opera's saying that it can't compete because users won't download browsers when they already have IE installed along with Windows, which has more than 90% of the desktop OS market share. But wait! 30% of users download Firefox, what's up with that? I guess users will go out of their way to download other browsers, after all. That undermines Opera's case. Oops!

      • Re:shouldn't undermine Opera's case (Score:5, Interesting)

        by yagu (721525) * <`moc.liamg' `ta' `ugayay'> on Wednesday January 30 2008, @04:43PM (#22239182) Journal

        The key here is they can't compete... not that they can't get some business. Yes, people may have shown they go out of their way to download a different browser, but if the market is still severely skewed (IMO it is) because of a monopoly abuse, there is a case for a remedy.

        • If you look back at the history of web browsers, one browser has usually had a majority of the usage share. First it was Mosaic, then Netscape, then Internet Explorer. I would agree that IE is the most popular browser currently because of the bundling with Windows, and that the over 90% of IE usage in the early 2000s was skewed from the normal browser usage pattern. But one browser having 80% usage share is normal and has happened before. For example, Netscape had 80% usage share around 1995-1996 [wikipedia.org] without be

              • Re:shouldn't undermine Opera's case (Score:4, Insightful)

                by Bogtha (906264) on Wednesday January 30 2008, @06:17PM (#22240402)

                My point is simply that a browser can get 80% or more of the market without being bundled with an OS.

                And b.emile's point was that this has only ever been demonstrated when the dominant operating system didn't have a browser bundled with it. The historical fact you point out is irrelevant because of this. You are excusing bundling because the desired outcome was possible before bundling was put into practice — you are begging the question.

                There's no guarantee that IE usage will drop to a minority share just because it becomes unbundled from Windows.

                It's not about making Internet Explorer drop to a minority share, it's about making browsers compete based on their value rather than whether the dominant desktop OS vendor makes them.

                  • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                    by JohnBailey (1092697)

                    I'm not excusing bundling. I'm saying it's not severely skewing the market. If it were, the unbundling would mean IE's usage would definitely drop severely from 70-80% to under 50%.

                    My personal experience with indifferent home users would tend to disagree with you.

                    So far, Everyone I have installed Firefox for has not switched back to IE, and are very impressed with the plugins and themes, and the spell checker in text fields. And of those who have tried IE7, only one likes it.

                    If IE was unbundled, then I don't think many people would download it as an informed choice, if anything, people might keep it around for Windows updates, but not much else. There are a lot of IE users, but at a

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by mqduck (232646)

          Yes, people may have shown they go out of their way to download a different browser, but if the market is still severely skewed (IMO it is) because of a monopoly abuse, there is a case for a remedy.
          I don't really know anything about Opera's case, but isn't the more important monopoly to point out, that they have a monopoly on Windows? (werent they supposed to break up?! :-P)

      • I guess users will go out of their way to download other browsers, after all. That undermines Opera's case. Oops!

        Not really, since lots of sites still require IE. Also, the UA switching thing for IE8 shows that Microsoft continues to undermine open standards, which was part of Opera's complaint. How silly of Microsoft to do that even after the complaint was made public.

      • I guess users will go out of their way to download other browsers, after all. That undermines Opera's case.

        No it doesn't. Just because it's obvious that Microsoft hasn't totally eradicated all competition, it doesn't mean that the market hasn't been harmed or that Opera hasn't had an undue burden placed upon it via illegal practices.

        To draw an analogy, this is like arguing that the fact somebody can still walk means that they haven't been assaulted. Just because you can show that the harm hasn't

      • Opera and Netscape used to be paid for products, but MS's monopolistic dominance in the OS field allowed them to give the browser away for free.

        Microsofties will go all wobbly on their knees reminding us that IE was better than Netscape, but when your knees are wobbling you are most likely to miss the point: MS killed the incentive to produce a browser, the only way to "compete" was to give the browser away for free, the cost of producing such software was swallowed by MS, making it impossible for anybody e
        • Both. Nearly all desktop computers have Windows installed. That's especially true in Europe where Mac OS is not popular.
    • If firefox continues to increase it's 'market share' then Microsoft can simply say that clearly users can download alternatives, because it's now proven they do, and thus Microsoft's inclusion of IE is not causing a monopoly in the browser world.
      • That they can download alternatives doesn't mean that you can use them everywhere. Lots of sites still require IE.
    • But if FF numbers are raising and those numbers are accurate, than it follows MS isn't (or can't) leverage its OS monopoly. In other words, Opera's complaint falls apart, because an OS monopoly is proving not to be effective to leverage another market.

      • Re:shouldn't undermine Opera's case (Score:5, Insightful)

        by hkmwbz (531650) on Wednesday January 30 2008, @04:58PM (#22239356) Homepage Journal
        Actually, MS does and can leverage its OS monopoly. It has done so for many years, to the detriment of other browsers. To this day, many sites still require IE. Opera's complaint does not fall apart since it can be shown that Microsoft has indeed been involved in anti-competitive practices, and the recent IE8 standards switch just proves this point.
      • Firefox and Mozilla Seamonkey are both outside the original market (which was web browsers that were created as a profit center).

        Just because free software which comes from outside the market exists and is starting to penetrate doesn't imply that the market isn't being dominated. MSIE is effectively destroying any attempts to create and SELL a competing web browser. Even Opera is free now. It didn't used to be.

    • Bundling is bundling. The real question is.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Joce640k (829181) on Wednesday January 30 2008, @04:46PM (#22239204) Homepage
      What would Firefox's share be if IE WASN'T bundled.

      Microsft's bundling definitely killed off the competition. That the competition has come back is proof of how shoddy IE really is, and that it should have been completely unable to compete with Netscape in a fair market.

  • What market? (Score:4, Funny)

    by geoffspear (692508) on Wednesday January 30 2008, @04:28PM (#22238970) Homepage
    Firefox accounts for 28% of all web browsers being purchased? How can I get into the business of selling people a product they can get from free?
  • Thats still a majority. Implying otherwise is silly.
  • And, they need to stop discriminating against Linux-based or other Open Source-based browsers as regards "initial sign-on".

    So, I say HOORAY to Europeans and others who are helping put a SERING and serious dent into ms' ie on that side of the pond. I am quite irritated that AT&T and others code for the unfairly dominant browser and not for one that follows W3C standards. I can't help but imagine that deliberately programming the Java to permit Konqueror, Flock, Firefox, et al can only be trivial.

    My tidbi

  • Opera (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hilather (1079603) on Wednesday January 30 2008, @04:35PM (#22239078)
    Personally I think Operas anti-trust suit is a little ridiculous. Even though Microsoft may sell Windows with IE, how does Opera expect its consumers to download and install Opera without a web browser? Sure you could have someone put it on a disk for you, but its somewhat of a chicken and the egg problem, you need to start with something, and it might as well be a product Microsoft can include in its OS without having to go to a third party. I would be pretty upset if after installing Windows I couldn't browse the net.

    • Re:Opera (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TheRaven64 (641858) on Wednesday January 30 2008, @04:48PM (#22239224) Homepage Journal

      Even though Microsoft may sell Windows with IE, how does Opera expect its consumers to download and install Opera without a web browser?
      By being OEMs. Every computer needs to come with a web browser, I'll agree, but if IE were not part of Windows then how many OEMs would bundle it? I'd imagine most would ship some cobranded version of Opera or Firefox and add it to their marketing ('comes with full-featured, secure, web browser with 90% more buzzwords than our leading competitor!').

    • how does Opera expect its consumers to download and install Opera without a web browser?
      To quote myself: Does Debian require a browser to use its package manager? Or Ubuntu?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by AlanS2002 (580378)
      how does Opera expect its consumers to download and install Opera without a web browser?

      Ever heard of FTP?

  • Yeah, But That's 28% in *Metric* (Score:5, Funny)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Wednesday January 30 2008, @04:38PM (#22239108) Homepage Journal
    In Imperial measures, that's how many Libraries of Congress?

  • Finland currently has the highest Firefox market share in Europe with 45.4 percent, followed by Slovenia with 44.6 percent and Poland with 42.4 percent
    ... oh. Nevermind.

  • NOTE: Here is the actual report (Score:5, Informative)

    by SplatMan_DK (1035528) * on Wednesday January 30 2008, @05:26PM (#22239744) Homepage Journal
    I tried to submit this story to Slashdot some 6-7 hours ago, when it was still not mentioned. So I happen to have the link to the original report :-)

    Relaunch of Mozilla Firefox's visit share in the European countries at the end of 2007 [xitimonitor.com]

    For more information about XiTi in general, visit their corp. homepage. [xiti.com]

    :-)

    - Jesper

  • According to latest statistics from France.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Colourspace (563895) on Wednesday January 30 2008, @06:04PM (#22240240)
    There are 3.7 Billion Firefox users in Societe General alone!

  • Phhht (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Iron Condor (964856) on Wednesday January 30 2008, @09:05PM (#22241894)

    Twenty eight percent.

    Firefox is as popular in Europe as GW Bush is in the US.

    And they both think that gives them some kind of mandate...

    • I think deep down in the bowels of Redmond Microsoft's tactic is still to deliberately render pages inaccurately so that web developers are forced to alter their pages to cater to it, thus breaking the browsers that do play by the rules.
      • It helps because all browsers would be (more) standards compliant. It would be cheaper to create sites for standards rather than for each browser.
    • Does Debian require a browser to use its package manager? Or Ubuntu?

    • Re:IE preventing users to get other browsers? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Xtifr (1323) on Wednesday January 30 2008, @05:03PM (#22239420) Homepage
      That's right. There are no download tools that could possibly exist besides a browser. Before browsers were created, nobody ever downloaded anything. Furthermore, there's no way that an OEM could possibly bundle their choice of browser with a system. If it isn't created by MS, it can't possibly be installed on a Windows system.

    • How could a user download a browser not having one already installed?

      Are you kidding?

      - Using an FTP client
      - Using a P2P/torrent application
      - Using another computer with a browser
      - Already having the software in question on a portable media, say a USB memory key or a CD?
      - Buying the browser at a computer store, just like many people do with tons of other software?

      If it were impossible to install new software on a computer without a working browser and an internet connection, hos would an operating system ever be installed? How would Linux be installed on a computer t

    • If Windows didn't come with a web browser at all, how would you go to the site to download Firefox or Opera?
      I'll quote myself again: Does Debian require a browser to use its package manager? Or Ubuntu?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SplatMan_DK (1035528) *

      Okay for all the complainers out there, consider this. If Windows didn't come with a web browser at all, how would you go to the site to download Firefox or Opera?

      You are joking, right?

      The presence of a working browser and a working internet connection is *NOT* a requirement for installing software.

      I have a ton of software (including an FF installer) on my USB key, I have a CD with the typical software I need when I visit friends and family who require help with their computers, and if all else fails I buy a computer magazine from the closest newsstand or store. No problem at all.

      If you could not get software (or a browser) at all without internet+browser, w

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