Category: Tech Insight

Chrome overtakes Firefox to become the number two web browser

Google ChromeJust over a month ago we reported that by the end of 2011, Chrome may have overtaken Firefox to become the second most used web browser. Well, according to new data from StatCounter this has now happened!

Google Chrome now has a 25.69% worldwide market share. This compares to Mozilla Firefox with a 25.23% share. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is still in the lead however with a 40.63 percent share of the browser market.

Ok, so the difference between Chrome and Firefox’s share is only 0.46%, but this milestone of Chrome overtaking Firefox is still very significant. That’s considering Chrome’s global market share has already gained an impressive 10.8 percent this year alone. This big leap in usage comes at the expense of Firefox, which lost 5.5 percent, and Internet Explorer loosing 6.3 percent share of the market in 2011.

According to StatCounter’s CEO:

“We can look forward to a fascinating battle between Microsoft and Google as the pace of growth of Chrome suggests that it will become a real rival to Internet Explorer globally. Our stats measure actual browser usage, not downloads, so while Chrome has been highly effective in ensuring downloads our stats show that people are actually using it to access the web also.”

– Aodham Cullen, CEO of StatCounter

Earlier this week, Microsoft released their 4th developer preview of Internet Explorer 10. IE10 is expected to be released to coincide with the launch of Windows 8 in the latter half of 2012.

But you can be sure that the folks over at Mozilla won’t take the news that Chrome has overtaken them lightly!

…so it certainly looks like the Browser War will hot up even more in 2012!

But you can be confident that our ongoing commitment to support our room booking system in the latest releases of all 5 major browsers will continue throughout 2012!


Firefox 8.0 Released!

Firefox 8If you’re a Firefox user, you may be interested to know that the folks at Mozilla have released another(!) major version of their popular browser, Firefox! Having only recently released Firefox 6.0 in August, closely followed by Firefox 7.0 at the end of September.. today sees the released of Firefox 8.0! In fact so fresh is this news, Firefox have yet to update their Release Notes for Firefox 8 yet!

The latest version bumps the release number to 8 taking it one step closer to matching IE 9 and Chrome in “who can have the higher version number”. See our previous blog entry on Browser Wars: “Version Number Supremacy”

MIDAS v3.14 is fully compatible with Firefox 8 because as part of our commitment to our browser based scheduling software, here at MIDAS HQ we regularly test our web app in pre-release builds of all 5 major browsers before final versions are released! (In fact, right now MIDAS v3.14 is currently compatible right up to Firefox 10.0a1!) This helps us to identify as early as possible any potential incompatibilities. That way we can address them before a major browser update is made available to the wider public!

Once Mozilla update the main Firefox site and download mirrors (which we anticipate within the next 48 hours), you’ll be able to update to the final version of Firefox 8.0. Until then, their Release Notes page currently refers to Firefox 8 “Beta”, but should give you an idea of what’s new in v8.0.

If you really can’t wait for the download mirrors to be updated and Firefox 8.0 to be available via the normal update routes, you can manually update to the final version of 8.0 through Mozilla’s public FTP site: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/8.0/


Google Chrome 15 Released… Firefox kicked into 2nd place?

Google Chrome 15
If you’re a Chrome user, you’ll be interested to know the next version of Google’s browser, Chrome 15, has just been released!

MIDAS is fully compatible with Chrome 15. That’s because as part of our ongoing commitment to our web based scheduling software, we regularly test our web app in pre-release builds of all 5 major browsers before final versions are released! This helps us identify as early as possible any potential incompatibilities with our software. We can then address these before a major browser update such as this is made available to the wider public!

If you’re technically minded, you can read what’s new in Chrome 15 in Google’s own blog.

Google Chrome Updates

Chrome 15 is a free update, and one of the things we love about Chrome is that it silently updates itself. No user interaction (other than a browser restart) is required. This ensures that you’re always using the most stable, secure and up-to-date version of Google Chrome!

Mozilla FirefoxIn other interesting Google Chrome-related news, it’s been reported recently by a number of sources, including Computerworld.com, that by the end of 2011, Chrome may have overtaken Firefox to become the second most used web browser! At the end of September, Microsoft Internet Explorer was in the lead with a 31.7% total share of the web browser market. Mozilla Firefox had a 26.8% share, and Google Chrome had a 23.6% share, according to data provided by StatCounter. So far this year, this equates to a 9% decrease in use of Internet Explorer, a 4% increase in the use of Firefox, but an impressive 8% increase in the use of Chrome.

Chrome may pass Firefox as the world's second-most-popular browser by the end of the year
Chrome may pass Firefox as the world’s second-most-popular browser by the end of the year (Data: StatCounter)

If this trend continues – and there’s no evidence to suggest otherwise – Chrome may overtake Firefox to become the second most popular browser within the next couple of months!

So if you’ve never heard of Google Chrome (and if not, where have you been!?), or have never tried it out for yourself, why not give Chrome a go!?


Firefox 7.0 Released!

Firefox 7
If you’re a Firefox user, you’ll be interested to know the next version of Mozilla’s popular browser, Firefox 7.0, has just been released! …in fact so fresh is this news, Firefox haven’t even updated their Release Notes for Firefox 7 yet!

MIDAS v3.13 is fully compatible with Firefox 7 because as part of our commitment to our browser based scheduling software, here at MIDAS HQ we regularly test our web app in pre-release builds of all 5 major browsers before final versions are released! This helps us to identify as early as possible any potential incompatibilities, so that we can address them before a major browser update is made available to the wider public!

Once Mozilla update the Firefox site, you’ll be able to see exactly what’s new in the final version of Firefox 7.0, but until then, the Release Notes page currently refers to Firefox 7 “Beta”, but should give you an idea of what’s new in v7.0

Firefox 7 is free and only take a couple of minutes to update!