Firefox 3 already rules the roost

Friday, June 27th, 2008

The full version of Firefox 3 has been available for all of 10 days now, and already it’s the most popular version of the browser being used to visit our website. I know Mozilla had a huge publicity drive to encourage people to download on day one and that Firefox is pretty active at encouraging people to upgrade to the latest version, but even still, the rapid take up of the new browser is impressive.

Here’s the breakdown of Firefox browser versions visiting www.pcpro.co.uk this week:

1. Firefox 3.0 – 55.13%
2. Firefox 2.0.0.14 – 39.27%
3. Firefox 2.0.0.11 – 0.96%

And for comparison, here’s the breakdown for Internet Explorer:

1. Internet Explorer 7 – 68.86%
2. Internet Explorer 6 – 30.97%
3. Internet Explorer 8 – 0.09%

So Microsoft still has three out of ten people running an old version of its browser more than 18 months after Internet Explorer 7 launched, while Firefox has converted more than half of its users to the latest version in just over a week.  That should set a few alarm bells ringing in Redmond…

The big question, reader David Wright asks on comments below, is what has Firefox 3 done to its overall market share with PC Pro readers? Here’s the answer:

1. Internet Explorer – 53.74%

2. Firefox – 39.40%

3. Safari – 3.83%

4. Opera – 2.15%

Watch out Microsoft. The Fox is gaining fast.

Check out next month’s PC Pro – on sale 17 July – for our Power User’s Guide to Firefox 3.