Firefox 3, which hasn't been released yet, is gaining a significant following, and has just overtaken Opera Software's Opera 9 desktop browser in global market share (according to Net Applications.) I wonder if Firefox 3 will be able to break 1% global share before it's even released. That would be pretty crazy.
With millions of people already using the pre-releases of Firefox 3 and the enthusiasm around the arrival of the final release, I have no doubt that we'll see Firefox well above 20% global market share in the very near term.
Posted by: Richard | June 2, 2008 12:46 PM
Firefox 3 (beta 5) is also shipping with Fedora 9, which was released on May 13. Interestingly, that's right in the middle of the jump from May 11-18.
Posted by: Kelson | June 2, 2008 12:56 PM
We see the same kind of growth curve in AUS pings which do not count any linux distro Firefox users. A more likely contributor to the Mid may spike would be the release of Firefox 3 RC1.
Posted by: Asa Dotzler | June 2, 2008 1:11 PM
Well, it's understandable. FF3 is the 1st FF release that does not suck as hell memory and bloatwise. Congratulations.
Posted by: mors | June 2, 2008 2:43 PM
That is because it is shipping with Ubuntu 8.04 and Dell is selling computers with Ubuntu preinstalled.