Firefox 3 The Most Popular Browser In Europe

We as Americans are lazy to begin with. I still can't beat the IE out of some of my relatives and friends. Not that they like IE, they are just too lazy/stupid to switch.

tok3ninja

Yeah, get going North America :)

Firasco

Sounds like they have the right idea.

OneEyedOdin

@tok3ninja: I'm Canadian and pretty much everyone I know uses Firefox lol. Maybe you're onto something!

SJRNWT

@tok3ninja: I'm sick of the myth of the lazy American. According to James Surowiecki in an article for the New Yorker, "The French work twenty-eight per cent fewer hours per person than Americans, and the Germans put in twenty-five per cent fewer hours. Compared with Europeans, a higher percentage of American adults work, they work more hours per week, and they work more weeks per year."

Perhaps Americans put in too many hours at actual work to fiddle with their computers when they get home, if they don't enjoy tinkering.

jetRink

I wonder how Opera fits in to all of that. I have friends in Europe that say Opera is very popular.

cha0tic

@[upload.wikimedia.org]

jetRink

I've been using Opera and Firefox for a long time now. I only use IE at work because.... well, okay.. [goes and installs firefox]

John_Ryan84

everyone i knows uses firefox

portugal (yes, its in europe :p)

What benefits do you get from using multiple internet utilities, such as using a combination of Opera and Firefox. I understand the need for the IE plugin for Firefox, but what gives? Pardon the ignorance here, but that is like using more than one media player (Well, I fall into that one.), or having more than one daily driver vehicle (Okay, I fall into that one too :[ .)

Nate Winn

@Nate Winn: I use fb2k for music, and VLC for "listening" for non-music what is on my playlist stuff. I use Chrome when I need distractionless browsing, FF when I need ease of use and speed.

I got my whole family to switch, and a few of my friends.

Even my friend who actually said that all downloads had viruses, and you can get a virus on your home PC by being near another PC with a virus. >____________>

A lot of the problem in the US is that a lot of web based enterprise applications can't run on anything but IE 6 or older. It costs money to upgrade those systems, and money isn't something that people have an abundance of these days - especially when what they have is serving their purposes just fine.

@cha0tic: maybe only in the Nordic countries.

@jetRink: thats because they need more money to pay for gas for their low mpg cars and SUVs lol :P

@jetRink: There is no question that statistically Americans work the most hours and take the least time off compared with European and other industrialized nations, however! there is a huge margin of difference with the output per hour, and it is this point that the American worker produces less and actually works less per hour on average than some other nations. Working 60 hours a week means nothing when you can be as effective with 50 hours.

I work with international companies and I can confirm that the American employees would prefer to let their focus drift at any chance possible (i.e. checking emails, and browsing the web while in meetings, or talking about sports and whoever has been kicked off the latest game show.) than actually stick to a schedule and get some things done.

I'm not criticizing the American work ethos, I'm simply making the case that other nations can be just as, if not more effective in a shorter work time. For the record I must work minimum 45 hours per week, while my French colleagues work 35.

On the case of IE... well I can tell you that a lot of end users just couldn't be bothered with changing, and those users on a corporate network that wish to change might be restricted to only IE. My company, and 56% of our customers still use IE 6. (pathetic yes, but IE7,8 and Firefox do not render many proprietary web applications)

When it becomes the most used browser in the world, we'll see if they really have the infrastructure to keep up with the hackers.

TheOtherHalf

chrome gmv

adhir

at the moment firefox is driving me up the wall (no chance of changing though) it keeps randomly crashing hiding all my bookmarks and not showing any extensions or the url of a website, reinstalling sorted the problem but still i get random crashes once or twice a day, bloody annoying, v 2 never had this problem for me

Will Price

So, I don't get it - why does the EU still have this huge stick up its ass that says they must persecute Microsoft to make them de-bundle IE from (or bundle other browsers into) Windows 7, when IE is apparently (as somewhat-inaccurately pointed out by such excellent analysts as this one!) nowhere near a threat of holding a monopolistic hold on the browser market there?

CnEY

A lot of people i know browse using Firefox. On my university, the citrix-clients have both IE7 and Firefox but Firefox is set as the default browser.

Adrian Buyssens

@Phoshi: well, some viruses are air-borne ;-)

FF works better with Google Apps than other browsers.

HappyPhil

For those of you who are Firefox fans give SkipScreen a go to get those pesky file hosting sites under the thumb! [addons.mozilla.org]

Also I have found most students I know have all switched to Firefox purely for add-ons as it lets us tame and manipulate the web to our likings without fuss! I don't know how I would cope without add-ons now or do I?
The problem is they just made it easy to enable extensions in Chrome, so coupled with Adsweep its done the unthinkable I've started jumping ship as its just so much faster and still ad-free!
So I wonder if while Firefox is currently making gains are its days numbered as once extensions are enabled by default in Chrome all the IE converts who came to Firefox for speed and Ad-block plus will just do the same to Firefox for Chrome + Adsweep!

I'll stay mostly loyal till I have replacements for Ad-block Plus (Tick), Google Preview, Taboo and Linkification (Tick) built into Chrome but how long is it before Google adds website previews anyway!

I wonder what IM client's people use in Europe vs America.

I ask, because Microsoft's Messenger client automatically opens links in IE, which will then ask you to change it back to your default browser. The average user will click right through this and go straight back to being an IE user.

SamburgerHandwich

Every once a while I hear these "outside of the cave" type news and it baffles me. I don't remember the last time I saw a creature using Internet Explorer and I live in LA.

@Will Price: You should consider creating a new Firefox profile. Just google it for instructions.

@Phoshi:
I pity your friend. My non-tech sister used to think like that but I sneaked in and installed Firefox on her computer.

Let's just say she now knows the difference.

I'm not really advocating for any one browser (I use FF on my work laptop, IE on my home desktop, and Chrome/FF on my personal laptop), but I don't think a lot of people need/want/would know what to do with anything more than what IE offers.

Seriously, how many people do you know that you'd be surprised if they had a hotmail/yahoo account? If all you ever do is check e-mail and look up the latest celebrity gossip (this is a large group), why would you care if Firefox does better with coffee (Java...it's a joke, get it?)?

bigvince1981

@Alicemagic:
Freelancer, I assume?
I mean, most IT people in my part of the world are on IE 6/7.

@CnEY:
This is the EU we're talking about.

@jetRink: Let's not talk about 'Americans' or 'Europeans' as if everyone in the region has the same work ethics. It makes more sense to say firemen have good work ethics, or video store clerks have bad work ethics. Those stats are completely meaningless except if you want to start a flame work.

All Americans are fat like little pigs.

DrifterTypeR

@rpmiranda: Ferdinand Magellan was Portuguese. He was a navigator. Mozilla was a codebase used by Netscape Navigator. Firefox is built by Mozilla. Kevin Bacon uses Firefox.

See...you thought I couldn't get there didn't you?

*dusts off hands*

greatodinsraven

@cha0tic: What is the American perception of us Europeans? That we all live in one apartment block with a flat for each country?

@shamalama: "and it is this point that the American worker produces less and actually works less per hour on average than some other nations."

Do you have a source for this? Also, as DrifterTypeR pointed out, any interpretation of statistics concerning average output depend on many different factors, including type of work, etc.

"I work with international companies and I can confirm that the American employees would prefer to let their focus drift at any chance possible"
Oo anecdotal evidence from some random guy on the internet. Case closed!

beala

Where we find the browser stats for each country?

@SamburgerHandwich: I actually went to great lengths to change that, downloading more than one addition onto Messenger to have it open my Hotmail in Firefox... then I changed to Gmail, lol

Michael

@Phoshi You use Firefox for speed?????

HarleyEchidna

One continent down. Anyone know what researchers in Antarctica are using?

KeatonHelva

@cha0tic: Opera is much faster than FF, especially on less capable systems. It's even faster than Firefox in all Linux distros I've tried! The downside is that there is a limited number of add-ons available for it, is not very standards-compliant (more than IE, but less than Firefox), and handles Javascript like a drunkard.

AlinaEumaeus

@samburgersandwich The most widely used IM client in the EU is Windows Live Messenger, and to a certain extend Skype.

GloriaEspiahi

@MattBeetee: Our perception is you're all stuck up and egotistical. :P

yay for firefox!

misandry

@TheOtherHalf: Since most of the "hackers" simply submit any security holes they find to the mozilla bug tracker I'm pretty sure it'll work out just fine.

TheLostVikings

@Phoshi: The funniest thing about people like that is that they're convinced that you don't know what you're talking about, and refuse to listen to you or anyone else tech-savvy...

@beala: I don't have evidence on me, but I too have seen research pointing out that generally as work hours increase beyond a certain point, they become less productive, and that Americans are often beyond that point

@Alicemagic:
*Raises hand* Ahem, I use IE8 as well. You should probably get out of your cave more often... IE8 works fine for me, I just don't understand people who feel teh need to have more then 1 internet browser, seriously.

nerve11

@AlinaEumaeus: pretty sure opera is the most compliant browser as far as web standards go

[en.wikipedia.org]

Gecko Browsers comply now but a couple years ago Opera was the only one that rendered properly.

@askj113: Is it the backwards-bending labor supply curve?

[en.wikipedia.org]

Gerry Juans

Firefox is dominated in Russia, because our biggest portal Yandex.ru (like Google.com in other world) spread FF3 in their ads.

Alex Tayra

I was under the impression that Opera Mini was one of the most widely used browsers in Europe - though that may have only been certain countries, not all of Europe.

@Nabeel: Or, could it be because the EU has gotten MS to unbundle IE (sticks not withstandng), that Firefox has taken the lead?

v.dog

@tok3ninja:
Oh, switching your relatives away from IE is easy. Give them Firefox, change its icon and apply one of the IE themes if necessary. They'll be none the wiser.

@nerve11:
Well, Firefox, for one, would have underlined the "teh" you have in your post. ;)

@w3schools gives a great statistical table of browser market share every month. Look at the trends in FF!

@AlinaEumaeus:
Less standards compliant?? Not true at all... Their CEO is the inventor of CSS, and they're a leading member of W3C... Also one of the first browsers to implement the CSS3 propositions.

For a long time it has been THE most standards-compliant browser, but now they're facing though competition from webkit. The Firefox/Gecko engine is nowhere as standards-compliant as either of these 2...

KoFFiE

And the first one in Antartica !
[gs.statcounter.com]

brunofs

@v.dog: Or like me and a lot of people I know who live in the EU (actually all my friends), we've realised IE is a pile of steaming featureless crap and are willing to use anything but IE

RomildaNerps

Yes, I'm portuguese and I use Opera preferably, Firefox or Chrome. IE só em casos excepcionais (IE only in exceptional cases.)

ZemarDawgie

@Gerry Juans: The backwards bending labour supply curve is to do with the opportunity cost and marginal utility of working an extra hour at a certain wage. I.E. after your wage per hour becomes sufficiently high, you can equal your "previous" salary by working fewer hours should you choose to (which is why the labour supply will fall and the curve bends backwards). I think that the issue raised by askj113 is more to do with marginal productivity whereby after a certain point, output per worker is falling with each additional hour worked which can be down to tiredness, distraction, resentment at overwork etc.

SanyuktaPelican

@TheLostVikings:

I do hope so. Mozilla's success (although security is much better) has also been attributed to it's relative obscurity as far as main stream, but since firefox 2.0, there has been a huge boom in popularity meaning more malware will target firefox. I'm sure they can hold up to it though.

Toribor

@HarleyEchidna: Above Chrome, yes.

@askj113: I know someone that insists that he has snow leopard installed on his Mac, even when they haven't released a beta or a release date yet. Idiot.

MikeZuniga

I'm the only one in my house to use Firefox 3, all the rest use Google Chrome which i'm trying to change but with no sucsess...

@askj113: Since everybody actually seems to be too lazy to do a search: http://stats.oecd.org/WBOS/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=LEVEL --> just order from high to low with the last column. I remembered this, mainly because it was a few months ago in the Belgian news that BE is a country with one of the highest productivity rates in the world. We may only work officially 38-40 hrs a week, but we get much more done in that time. That was the reasearch's explanation, not mine ;) Then again, as being from BE and having worked in 4 different countries (all European btw) in the last 9 months I can actually confirm that finding. There work ethics in some countries are seriously strange and for some reason they all called me nuts :)))

HayesLeech

FF > *

There's no way I could surf the net without Adblock+ - and as this extension is only available for Firefox thats the only browser I use. That statement goes for nearly everyone I know in my (admittedly very technical) group of friends and colleagues.

ConradGeryon

@Firasco:
Somebody tell the EU their case against MS just fell apart.

TheAxMan

@SamburgerHandwich:

Looolwut.

My MSN always opens up in Firefox. I havnt seen IE opened up on my computer in years. (Not counting IETab for the occasional test)

GHNeko