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Firefox's market share climbs toward world domination

Open-source browser is approaching 20 percent global market share. Will it be able to sustain its rise toward world domination, er, open-source liberation?

Matt Asay Contributing Writer
Matt Asay is a veteran technology columnist who has written for CNET, ReadWrite, and other tech media. Asay has also held a variety of executive roles with leading mobile and big data software companies.
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Matt Asay

Firefox is set to top 20 percent global market share in July, continuing its steady trend toward world domination through, er, open-source liberation.

Unlike Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which relied on all sorts of tricks and tying to achieve its dominant status, Firefox's gains seem to be coming for two reasons:

  1. It works better (Better security, better performance, better functionality).
  2. It's much more customizable.

As ReadWriteWeb points out, the game is increasingly Firefox's to lose. Internet Explorer used to command 96 percent of the market. Now it's struggling to hold onto 80 percent, with Firefox chipping away, 1 percent at a time.

Better software doesn't always win. In today's market, in fact, the superior marketing budget generally wins.

But not in the IE versus Firefox war, for some reason. Firefox continues to gain market share. Perhaps this time "better" really will translate into market share.