Announced today, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is no longer able to claim the majority of internet traffic as it has for over a decade. Of course this is a welcome announcement for web designers who, because of IE’s lack of standards compliance, have been hacking their own designs, to the detriment of their sanity, to make them cross-browser compatible.
This is indeed what opened the door for Mozilla’s Firefox, an open-source, standards compliant browser, to become the second most used browser, to the detriment of IE. Of course the irony here is that Firefox is a distant cousin, if you will, of Netscape, the browser that IE killed.
So will Firefox become the dominant browser soon? No. And here’s why.
About a year ago, my employer stated that “we design for Internet Explorer because it’s the standard”. “Standard?,” I argued. “Of our department,” he replied. Hence, as we talked about redesigning our site for mobile browsing and building learning apps for the iPad, I informed him of why IE as a department standard was shortsighted.
IE gained it’s dominance by being pre-installed and tightly integrated with the Windows desktop. As the Windows operating system gained market share, so did IE. This is the same reason that Apple’s Safari browser will be next.
Currently, Safari browses 62% of mobile internet traffic. Apple made a mistake taking 4 years, after it’s 2003 release, to make Safari available for Windows, giving Firefox much of a head start. Additionally, Safari did not offer initially plug-ins to extend it’s functionality. However, Apple’s steadily increasing market share in desktop/laptop market, and it’s first-to-market dominance of the mobile market with the iPod, iPhone and iPad will lead it’s native Safari browser to dominance. Apple’s mistake was taking 4 years, after it’s 2003 release, to make Safari available for Windows, giving Firefox much of a head start.
The future is uncertain. Firefox is the “chosen” browser for now, but does not have the foundation and ecosystem of an operating system. Meanwhile, Google’s Chrome browser is the foundation for their web-based Chrome OS but not the browser used for their Android mobile OS, which is now the best-selling platform. Apple has been challenged many times in their dominant markets over the years but their early, industry-first advantage and ecosystem of devices, software and services keep them the reigning champ.
What do you think? Which will be the next dominant browser and why? Share your thoughts.
