Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Browser Wars II? Alternative Browser Downloads Surge in Wake of IE Exploits

Browser Wars II? Alternative Browser Downloads Surge in Wake of IE Exploits "The long-stagnant Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) might command about 95 percent of the Web browser market but a recent spate of security vulnerabilities seems to be finally helping IE's competitors make some inroads into the market. Even the usually staid United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) has taken the unusual step of advising users to switch to a different browser because of IE's many attacks. The result has been a bonanza for safer browser alternatives such as Mozilla and Opera.
The Mozilla Foundation reports that daily downloads of its Mozilla browser suite and Firefox Web browser have doubled since US-CERT's recommendation; on the day of the US-CERT announcement, the foundation says that users downloaded the products more than 200,000 times. "More people seem to have reached their threshold level of frustration dealing with problems with IE and Windows and have found the Mozilla software a good solution to solving those problems," Chris Hofmann, The Mozilla Foundation's director of engineering, said. "US-CERT's recommendation is just a reflection of the trend we have seen for quite some time."

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