Firefox 4 Market Share Increases 30% After Upgrade Offer

By | May 15, 2011 | 8 Comments

Firefox 4 Market Share Increases 30% After Upgrade OfferFirefox 4′s market share went up by 11% after Mozilla initiated the upgrade offer last week. That was only on the first day, however, for the browser managed 30% market share growth in the four days since the offer began. This prompted Mozilla’s community coordinator for Firefox marketing Asa Dotzler to compare the gains of Firefox and Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) as both of the browsers launched in March of this year.

IE9 will never catch up to Firefox. It will be a year or two before Microsoft can move the bulk of their IE7 and IE8 users forward.


Going by what web metrics company StatCounter has to say, Firefox 4 usage share sprang from 10.3% to 11.4% the day Mozilla began asking existing users if they wished to upgrade to the new edition, this being an 11% increase. Firefox 4 accounted for 13.2% of all browsers the previous Thursday, this being a 30% increase.

IE9′s progress, on the other hand, has been much slower. Microsoft turned on the Windows Update upgrade on the 18th of April, causing IE9′s share to increase 20% in the first four days since that date. Indicating gradual growth, IE9 broke the 4% barrier for the first time last weekend.

Despite Mozilla having turned on its upgrade offer two weeks after Microsoft, Firefox 4 has accomplished a higher market share than IE9. This can be explained by the fact that Firefox 4 runs on Windows XP, Mac OS X, and Linux along with Windows Vista and Windows 7 while IE9 only runs on the latter two.


About (Author Profile)


Being passionate about software, Armin joined FavBrowser.com in early 2011 and has been actively writing ever since. Having accepted the challenge, he also enjoys watching anime, indulging in good books, staying fit and healthy, and trying new things.

  • Tiago Sá

    It can also be explained by the fact that IE sucks and only losers use it and Firefox is the only proper browser around…

    • Sarjoor

      So wrong Tiago.  IE9′s Vista/Win7 platforms may not be the only reason, but you’re certainly not providing any reason; you are just fanboi ranting, which is uesless!

      IE*9* does *NOT* suck at all.  It is in fact very good!  Opera and Chrome are also very good and proper browsers.  Firefox is most definitely *NOT* the only proper browser.  In fact, FF was the slowest and most cumbersome browser until the FF4 revamp.  Even now, FF4′s UI is still slow, pending all the scheduled UI bugs needing fixing to improve it.Get off your fanboi, auto-crapping dishing, high-horse Tiago.  The fact of the matter is, FF fanboiz can no longer blindly dish crap when it comes to IE9.  Or remember to prefix your IE slagging with IE<=8.

      • Tiago Sá

        Thank you for stating the obvious in your first paragraph.

        And thank you for being a fanboy ranting in your second one :)

    • Anonymous

      Actually after seeing Firefox4′s bloat, I think you can even discount that as a proper browser.   Firefox has always suffered really bad memory leaks, and FF4 seems to have gotten worse in this area.

      I use Opera 11.10 as my primary browser, as it’s VERY fast, it’s also FULLY featured and VERY secure.  It’s also very LIGHTWEIGHT in it’s resource requirements.

      The only browser that delivers the best of all worlds. 

      • http://twitter.com/bricky149 Shane Bundy

        You say Firefox has suffered bad memory leaks but why do you think Mozilla has opened several meta bugs to resolve those issues?

        BTW you imply Opera is “the best of both worlds”. You could be right there but that could be disputed by Chrome fanboys with some pointless arguments.

        I’m digging the third paragraph though. :)

      • http://twitter.com/bricky149 Shane Bundy

        You say Firefox has suffered bad memory leaks but why do you think Mozilla has opened several meta bugs to resolve those issues?

        BTW you imply Opera is “the best of both worlds”. You could be right there but that could be disputed by Chrome fanboys with some pointless arguments.

        I’m digging the third paragraph though. :)

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_6D3ULFVQ5WSVG25YPOHPDQFLBE Art Mcfreeze

    IE9 may be good, but it still cannot compare to Opera, FireFox, or Chrome.   Even Safari could easily be considered a better browser.  I personally use Opera the most, but FireFox still is good, and Chrome is still really fast.  Different browsers are better for different things. 

  • Geek

    So when FF overall market share started going down, then Mozilla started their new marketing strategy – don’t speak about overall share, post only newest version growth. Mozilla new development cycle will also be good for this. Oh look how FF v5/6/7/8 market share is growing!!!! Who cares is overall market share is going down and down..

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