Nearly one third (29.6pc) of Irish web users choose Mozilla Firefox over Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as their internet browser and it is the overall browser of choice for nearly 25pc of Europeans.
French online research firm XiTi Monitor compared usage of the open-source browser at the end of 2007 and 2006 and found its market share has increased by nearly 20pc since December 2006.
The highest percentage of Firefox users in Europe are in Finland, where it had a 45.4pc market share, while Ukraine has the lowest percentage at 9.5pc.
While many comparisons have been made in the past between Firefox and its dominant rival Internet Explorer, none has been made between its users until Mozilla recently launched a campaign called ‘The Fight Against Boredom’ to promote the browser.
The statistics used in the campaign, which some web users found offensive, claimed that Firefox users were 45pc more likely than Internet Explorer users to have gone on a date, 16pc less likely to have fungal infections and 51pc less likely to be an accountant.
Data gathered by US analysis firm Net Applications in December 2007 showed that Firefox was used by 16.8pc of global surfers visiting the 40,000 sites the company monitors and that Internet Explorer users accounted for 76pc, down from 77.4pc in November 2007.
Coinciding with this increase in Firefox adoption, BBC has finally decided to make its on-demand TV application iPlayer compatible with the Mozilla-owned browser after having it available only for Internet Explorer users in its first six months. However, Linux and Mac users will have to wait longer for this service.
By Marie Boran
