Friday, July 31, 2009
Firefox Reaches One Billion Downloads [UPDATED]
Once the plucky underdog in the browser battle, Mozilla’s Firefox is today the second most popular browser worldwide, after Internet Explorer. Since it was first released in November 2004, the browser has succeeded not just in dislodging IE from its dominant market position, but in proving that an open-source project can become a widely used consumer application. At 7:47 am PDT this morning, the browser reached its billionth download.
Microsoft’s proposal to remove Internet Explorer from Windows 7 in Europe may put the company in compliance with European law, but it’s not going to lead to better competition in the browser market. That’s the word from Microsoft’s rivals at home and abroad who say the “must-carry” provision the European Commission has been mulling as a solution to the company’s antitrust indiscretions is the only one that will work.
Apple touts Safari 4, released as a public beta this morning, as the world’s fastest Web browser for Mac and Windows PCs, and after using it for a short time, it’s tough to disagree. Safari 4 is fast–three times as fast as Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3, if Apple’s typically hyperbolic claims are to be believed.
Mozilla is not only adding its voice to that of European antitrust regulators who claim Microsoft’s bundling of IE with its Windows OS is anticompetitive, but offering its counsel as well. In a post to the Mozilla blog last weekend, Mozilla Corporation CEO Mitchell Baker said that she had “not the single smallest iota of doubt” that the European Commission’s preliminary conclusion that “Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between Web browsers” is correct.
The stock market’s performance this past year isn’t the only thing that’s charting historic lows. According to preliminary December metrics from Net Applications, the share of the browser market held by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has slipped below 70 percent. 
Google’s Chrome browser has been available for just about a day and the first reviews are slowly beginning to hit the Web. They’re largely positive, although in that “worthy, but largely unexciting” sort of way typically reserved for new Microsoft operating systems. Here’s a quick roundup of first impressions.
Apple’s Safari browser has offered “private browsing” since 2005, Firefox since 2006 (via the Stealther extension), and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer may soon offer it as well. Earlier this week, Natya Nadella, senior VP of Microsoft’s search, portal and advertising platform group, said the company is planning to give IE 8 a privacy feature for erasing search histories and the other data that browsers often log automatically.
