Browser wars are back on, claims Firefox chief

The browser wars are back on in Europe where Mozilla's Firefox now claims 23 per cent market share, two years after its word-of-mouth launch, new research reveals.

And now the open-source web browser is aiming for 35 per cent market share by the end of 2007.

"In July of 2003, Microsoft gave AOL a $750 million cheque to kill off the browser wars, and let all of us developers go," said Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe.

"Well, now we're back."

Nitot said reaching 35 per cent share in Europe, an unthinkable achievement a year ago, is now well within reach. Since the launch of Firefox 2 in October, the daily download rate for the browser has doubled to between 500,000 and 600,000 per day, Nitot said, adding he was unsure how many people were upgrading from Firefox 1, and how many were first-time users.

"We're seeing a big surge in downloads, better than we expected," he said.

According to French web measurement firm XitiMonitor, as of September, Firefox usage across the European countries it covers was 23 per cent of all browsers, with usage spiking in Slovenia and Scandanavia at between 30 to 40 per cent. The firm did not carry statistics for other browsers.

XitiMonitors measures usage by the number of page views requested by a browser: a figure, it must be noted, that would likely place the actual number of Firefox users at under 23 per cent, on the assumption that the Web savvy Firefox user is a more prolific surfer and therefore visits more Web pages than regular Windows Internet Explorer users.

Still, the surge in Firefox usage cannot be good news for Micorosoft, which launched IE 7 last month, its first major upgrade to the browser in five years.

Most industry observers believe Microsoft's neglect of the browser was the best promotion for the fledgling Firefox. In introducing a browser with tabbed pages, browser bar search engine integration, an ever-expanding list of add-ons, plus a more secure browsing experience, Firefox out-performed its own ambitious usage goals.

Mozilla Europe famously predicted in the autumn of 2004 that it would claim 10 per cent of the browsing market after its first year. It came in at between 10-15 per cent, Nitot said.

And, while Firefox usage is higher in Europe than North America in terms of share, the top two countries by users is the United States and Germany, Nitot said.

Looking forward, Nitot said there are big plans for Firefox 3, code named 'Gran Paradiso'.

The browser, which has been in development for over a year and will likely launch officially at the end of 2007, is viewed as the most multi-media-friendly browser ever developed.

Nitot said the browser will take advantage of the latest built-in computing power, notably the hardware-accelerated graphics that comes as standard in new computers, to render Web pages more quickly. "Think of it as being built for speed," Nitot said.

He advised that while beta versions of Firefox 3 are available for download, the browser is still considered too unstable for general use.

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