| A comprehensive review of Firefox 1.5 |
Nov. 22, 2005
 In just 12 months, Firefox has gained substantial market share against a formidable competitor, and has surpassed 100 million downloads. "Firefox has gone from relative obscurity to being the world's second most popular browser," writes PC Magazine's Matthew Sarrel in a new review of version 1.5.
"It's got only about 9 percent of the Internet browsing market, but that's incredible for a version 1.0 product, especially since the top browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer, comes bundled with new PCs," continues Sarrel.
What's more, "The release of Firefox 1.5, the first major upgrade since Firefox 1.0 came out in November 2004, is almost certain to drive adoption rates even higher," Sarrel predicts.
Naturally, different polling and surveying organizations are bound to come up with different market numbers -- especially when the field of use is as broad as the Internet -- and this is certainly the case here.
OneStat.com, an Internet traffic analyst and consultant, recently reported that Firefox's piece of the worldwide browser market has now topped the 11 percent mark -- up more than 3 percent from six months ago. Microsoft's Internet Explorer still dominates, however, at 85 percent. Netscape, Opera, Safari (for Macintosh), and several others make up the remainder of the market.
In his review, Sarrel points out that, despite the addition of new features, "Firefox has not fattened up with its success; it's still lean, mean, fast, and clean. The core application itself is less than 5MB. By comparison, Internet Explorer 6 SP1 (including Outlook Express) ranges from 11MB to 75MB -- depending on which files are needed," he writes.
Sarrel also has plenty to say about Firefox 1.5's user interface, extension system, and other facets. You can read the full review of Firefox here. Download your own copy of Firefox 1.5 RC3 here.
Related Stories:
(Click here for further information)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
