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Thu, 12 August 2004
Mozilla will win
Mozilla - the family of browsers that includes Netscape 7, Mozilla and Firefox - is headed above 10 per cent market share.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer has held more than 95 per cent of the browser market since June 2002, according to WebSideStory. That ended in July 2004. In a year, MSIE will have less than 90 per cent.
How do I know? I've been recommending friends install Firefox, the lightest version of the Mozilla browser. My friends are all broadband users whose systems have been sinking under the latest slimy wave of spyware. They're sick of trying (mostly vainly) to debug systems to eradicate random pop-up ads triggered by programs that mutate right in front of their eyes. They cover the spectrum from struggling teachers to $2000-a-day executives. They've been installing it. It's great, they say. Decoded, this seems to mean "it's like Internet Explorer, but without the problems". A couple of people like the tabs, but what they mostly like is the security.
Getting the next five per cent of users to install Firefox in exchange for getting rid of spyware hassles ... this is a done deal, now that Firefox just works.
If you need to stick with Internet Explorer, try installing BHODemon for browser helper objects, CWShredder for the CoolWebSearch trojan and Ad-aware for miscellaneous nasties. Ad-aware has recorded 60 million downloads from CNET alone. Both Ad-aware and BHODemon's creators are struggling to keep their Web sites up under the demand. CWShredder's creator, Merijn Bellekom, has given up, telling The Register [link] that "I simply do not have the tools to remove the latest variants. They are too aggressive or too complicated to allow for automated removal."
