Firefox Usage Up, But Slowing

According to recent data from two Web statistics firms, Mozilla's Firefox continues to eat away at Microsoft's Internet Explorer market share, but its gains have begun to slow. WebSideStory reports that Firefox is used by 5.69 percent of Web surfers while IE usage has dropped below 90 percent for the first time in years to 89.95 percent.

Although it continues to make progress in a market once dominated solely by IE, Firefox's rate of growth has diminished since its 1.0 launch in November. The open source browser's market share initially grew 34 percent, but has since dropped to a rate of 15 percent.

OneStat, meanwhile, placed total usage of Mozilla-based browsers at 8.45 percent with IE holding 87.28 percent of the market. OneStat did not provide specific Firefox usage numbers, but echoed WebSideStory's growth trend.

"Firefox's usage has slowed since its big surge in November. This is probably to be expected as we move beyond the early adopter segment," said WebSideStory CEO Jeff Lunsford.

Nonetheless, Firefox has been a resounding success for the Mozilla Foundation. The browser recently passed the 25 million download mark, and even garnered congratulations from Microsoft evangelist turned blogger Robert Scoble. "In just a few months your app has become one of the most used Windows applications in the world," Scoble wrote.

Seemingly in response to the growing threat from Firefox, as well as concern from partners and customers, Microsoft has backed away from its long-standing decision to hold off on any major IE upgrade until the next release of Windows in 2006. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced earlier this month that IE7 will be released before Longhorn, with a beta scheduled for this summer.