If you are one of the 90% Internet users who depend on Internet Explorer, then most probably you are annoyed by spyware and viruses and are considering an alternative to the IE. 19 million people have already downloaded the Firefox browser from Mozilla and are enjoying the pop-up free environment.
IE from Microsoft is losing its market share drastically. A recent survey conducted by WebSideStory Inc has shown that IE which had 90.5 per cent share in mid 2004 has now come down to around 88% share in the browser market.
IE users are switching to Firefox mainly due to security reasons as they feel that the latter is secure.
WebSideStory conducted its survey by incorporating sensors in major web sites around the world. After collecting data from 30 million users a day, they found that the market share of Firefox is rising and that of Internet Explorer is declining. They also showed that people are not only downloading Firefox but they are also staying with it. Users love the multiple tab feature of the software.
Microsoft however says that enterprises will continue to stick to its Internet Explorer, as it is the standardized Web surfing platform available. There are many applications, which depend on Internet Explorer, and one cannot completely do away with it. After all you need IE to download Microsoft updates. The company also said that they are developing a more secure version of the browser, which will be released along with the next Windows version called Longhorn in 2006.
Although Firefox is touted as a very secure Web browser, experts do not completely agree to it. They feel that hackers are not very much interested in his browser because it is not as widely used as IE is. As Firefox becomes popular malicious software developers will find it worthwhile to exploit the security holes in it.
