By Craig Rowe / Published on June 27th, 2008 / Computers
For as long as you can remember the basic Internet browser was Internet Explorer. Of course, there was a moment in time when Netscape was trying to get that market share, but Internet Explorer won out and there are many people that don’t realize Internet Explorer is only their browser and they can change if they like. In fact, most folks believe Internet Explorer is the only option for reaching the Internet. However, this is not the case and there is a new kid on the block that is taking advantage of the security issues Internet Explorer has experienced and pulling a significant amount of market share in a short period of time. This newcomer web browser is Firefox.

Firefox is a browser that focuses on opening web sites rapidly while keeping those nasty pop-ups and spyware at bay. Firefox was in its final stages last summer and fortunately for the up and coming browser two federal agencies recommended Internet surfers choose a different browser than Internet Explorer due to security issues IE was facing. This timing was perfect for Firefox and when it was placed on the web for download there were so many people trying to download at once the server almost could not handle all of the requests.

However, Firefox came through and many web surfers switched from Internet Explorer. In fact, Internet Explorer held the market share for web browsers at 95.5%, but has slipped to 92.9% in just the few months Firefox has had its test version on the market. This might seem like just a few percentage points, but these percentage points represent millions of individuals who have switched from IE to Firefox. In fact, approximately 23 million preview copies of Firefox have been downloaded.

So, what does this mean for IE and Firefox? Who will win this browser war? If Firefox continues gaining market share as it has then Firefox might come out on top. However, if IE works to fix its security problems it can probably hold onto its 90% plus market share. Only the future has the answer, we will just have to wait and see.




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