Here's an interesting stat from Site Reference - for the main site, there is a 2:1 ratio of Firefox users to Internet Explorer users.  Only 15% of the traffic Site Reference sees comes from users browsing with Internet Explorer.

Now I know this is a webmaster focused website, so the numbers are going to be skewed more heavily in Firefox's direction, but I was a little shocked to see just how much of a skew there was towards Firefox.

I had a whip around of all my sites last week. The average was still under 15%

I also find myself using IE more again as many websites don't "work" using FF - esp any java stuff etc. i have been through asll the options adn help on Mozilla forum, so untill all sites work, IE will continue to have a place in my daily online life.

Typically if a site doesn't work with Firefox, I don't spend any time there.  Fortunately there are very few sites that don't work with firefox for me.

My web stats have been showing an increase in the use of firefox. it's only a couple of points difference. But it is going up. I think it's a good idea to check a web page you just built in the 4 main browsers people use, and I also check it with different screen resolutions.

SiteReference wrote:

Typically if a site doesn't work with Firefox, I don't spend any time there.  Fortunately there are very few sites that don't work with firefox for me.

These are sites with various functionalities in back end areas for members.
Generally site owners don't care if it works in FF - it is not worth their time to fix it for the current low % of users that complain. So i use IE for those.

I also see an increase in Firefox visitors.
I think this is because of the big buzz
and the functionality.

I find that FF loads web pages fast
than IE does.

I still find that IE displays my
pages in the way I want than FF does.

They have differences in <br>, <li> etc.
But not huge.

The main difference between IE and Firefox is not so much in how the site looks, but what types of programming you can use.  The main active languages all work fine with both.  There are some things Firefox doesn't support, like Site Certificates, but those are evaled by Microsoft, so that's a given.  Java was already mentioned. 

Mainly though, you should make sure that your CSS and HTML are fully compliant and you'll be fine.  There are only a few minor differences between the two, and none of them are all that useful in site design anyway.

Javascript is your big issue.  Since Javascript has different referrences and a few functions for different browsers, you should definitely review any JS that you use with the major browsers to make sure it all works.

I am amazed to hear how many web designers are using FF. We are also seeing a p-r push from Opera, and with the ie 7 around the corner. ..  Well it's anyone's quess what css will not work.

W3School did a review of javascript enable viewers   visiting their site about a year ago and it turned out over 25% (I think) had their javascript disabled.  Even though these are mostly web designers I believe the market will follow. 

With the new ie7 coming out I think we will see alot more xml.

There also seems to be problems (in my industry, travel)  with ie7 being notcompatable with ActiveX . .net or  javascript, not sure where the problem is but it seems someone will have to retool their  apps.  Some of the apps(from other companies) my company uses currently don't work in FF, mozilla, opera or ie7.  Any Ideas??

I have a few different type Web sites that I handle. In general the higher on the scale of the Internet technical information focus of the site, the more likely I will see a higher percentage of alternative browsers used on that site then any version of IE. That said though, even on the sites I run that are frequented mostly by low tech people, I have seen an approximate 5% increase in the use of alternative browsers with Firefox leading the pack. The only time I ever use the IE browser is for sites that are work related and I am required to use IE to access them, otherwise I go to another site that will allow users with alternative browsers and forget the sites that refused to let me in with Firefox or Mozilla ever existed. I suspect that this is a trend going on with a growing number of Internet users that are like me. Personally, I'm pretty sick an tired of Web sites demanding that  people have to use IE to access their Web sites and a lot of people I talk to personally, in my daily work routine, say they have the same opinion as me and also boycott sites that demand the use of IE to use or access their sites.

You might find this web site helpful:

http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/

SiteReference wrote:

Here's an interesting stat from Site Reference - for the main site, there is a 2:1 ratio of Firefox users to Internet Explorer users.  Only 15% of the traffic Site Reference sees comes from users browsing with Internet Explorer.

When comparing stats, you might also want to consider how the stats are actually calculated (if you're not already). For example, are those users UNIQUE, or do they include repeat visits?

Depending on the number of unique visitors to the site, and the number of repeat users that generate a lot of page views, the stats can be virtually irrelevant if you're going based on visits only. 

Doug

no.: reqs: pages: browser
---: ----: -----: -------
  1: 2709:   862: Netscape - Firefox
   : 2575:   846:   Mozilla/1- Maybe Google or Yahoo! anyone know?
  2: 5150:   683: MSIE
   : 4957:   571:   MSIE/6
   :   80:    52:   MSIE/5
   :   64:    11:   MSIE/7
   :    6:     6:   MSIE/4
Usually a few Safari but not this week.
These are stats from my site not including bot visits for the last week. So there are still many IE users out there. I have been a Firefox user for a long time but it is also necessary to keep IE for those rare times - Microsoft web sites mostly where Firefox is not supported. FF is also kind of buggy on big time java sites where it will freeze for a minute or longer before loading the page. But other than that it is FAST!
But we shall see in Version 2.0 what improvements have been made. I have not installed it and probably won't until it is officially released. I've been Beta screwed before and am not willing to take the chance.
If anyone has 2.0 installed what do you think of it?

Obviously all browsers matter on the web.
I would suggest from my business experience however that Firefox adoption is lesser in the small business European communities than elsewhere.

There maybe a question however as to whether Firefox matters with Web 2.0   


(I continue with IE - and much to the annoyance of many of this forums visitors who access my sites - especially as I also use proprietary WYSIWYG software without valid code !)

dann wrote:

FF is also kind of buggy on big time java sites where it will freeze for a minute or longer before loading the page.

Firefox doesn't come with Java.  If its "buggy" well then thats the fault of Sun Microsystems not Firefox.

Personally it works fine for me.

Whoa back from the edge some here. There is no ONE stat for this.
We track analytics for more than 20 sites of varying industry types, so I see a ton of browser stats. Interestingly, the numbers vary from industry to industry. ‘
You, as one would imagine, see a lot more FF on ‘artistic’ sites (web design, stock photos, music etc..) than you do on business sites (biz development, legal, corporate).

My point being that you can see an important pattern for targeting you market group even closer. We also notice that Resolutions, Cookies and operating systems also have the same coherent patterns that create a technological ‘profile’ of market segments.

While such information is not overly important, it’s always good to establish as mouch information about your visitors as possible to ensure a perfect surfing ecperience on one’s site.

Internet Explorer      77%
Firefox     15%
Unknown     3%
Safari     2%
Opera     2%
Netscape     <1%
Mozilla     <1%
Konqueror     <1%
Camino     <1%
AvantGo     <1%
Epiphany     <1%
Firebird     <1%
Phoenix     <1%
Shiira     <1%
AppleWebKit (Generic)     <1%
Galeon     <1%
Lynx     <1%

This is fresh from my mint stats. There's browsers in there I've never heard of, let alone used.