Firefox still the majority browser in 14 countries
Publish date: 19 July 2012 by Hanleigh DanielsMozilla recently made the latest edition, version 14, of its popular Firefox web browser available for users to download, bringing new features such as secure Google searches and native fullscreen support for Mac OS X Lion. Now, website monitoring firm Pingdom has taken a closer look at how popular the browser is around the world.
According to the latest figures (July 2012) from StatCounter, Google’s Chrome browser is in the lead within the tightly contested browser wars, obtaining 33.8% usage worldwide. Coming in a very close second is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) which with its 31.83%, whilst Firefox completes the top 3 getting 23.9% usage globally.
Nations where Firefox logs over 50% usage
Around the world though, Firefox still maintains a dominant position in 14 countries, most notably Cuba where the fox is utilised by 72.2% of the web surfing population. Pingdom pointed out that
Cuba is a stronghold for Linux operating systems, which assists in boosting the Firefox browser usage rate in that country.
It would appear that Firefox is also the browser of choice for a lot of countries on the African continent. Eight of the 14 nations on the list are African states, with Cameroon (67.9%), Madagascar (60.8%) and Ghana (59.2%) leading the African Firefox charge.
Version 14 to boost Firefox user adoption rates?
Pingdom stated that Mozilla’s Firefox browser has seen a drop in its usage figures of late, with the new rapid (six weeks) release schedule also
coming under fire from some developers recently.
The company said that Firefox is “still arguably a good web browser” used by millions of computer users around the globe. However, it added that the fact that it still dominates in certain countries is going to matter less than whether it will be able to wrestle users away from Chrome and IE.
Do you use Firefox as your web browser? What do you think about version 14 and do you also feel that the rapid release schedule is hurting Firefox? Let us know what you think by posting a comment below.
In related news, Mozilla aims to stake a bigger claim in the mobile market via its own mobile platform, dubbed
Firefox OS. This mobile operating system will be powering smartphones that utilise software built on open web standards, with all of the mobile device’s capabilities being developed as HTML5 applications.
