The free Web browser from the Mozilla Foundation surpassed 10 million downloads on Saturday as Web surfers continue to move away from Microsoft's market-dominating IE. The milestone highlights growing frustration with the security vulnerabilities that have dogged IE during the past few months. Nearly two dozen holes in the Web browser have been discovered during the fall, ranging in degrees of seriousness.
"It seems that people are switching from Microsoft's Internet Explorer to Mozilla's new Firefox browser," Niels Brinkman, co-founder of research firm OneStat.com, said in a statement in November.
Firefox has surpassed the 10 million download mark while gaining 5 percentage points in May to 7.4 percent in November, according to OneStat.com.
Firefox's percentage gain helped cut into Microsoft's dominance of the Web browser market, cutting its market share to less than 90 percent. OneStat reported in November that IE's market share had slipped to 88.9 percent in the third week of November, down 5 percentage points from its share in May. Mozilla-based browsers, including Firefox, rose to 7.4 percent, up 5 percentage points from May.
Microsoft has disputed these numbers, claiming that they do not represent corporate users.
"It doesn't jibe with what WebSideStory shows, and what neither of these count is corporate intranets where users aren't actually hitting the Web," Gary Schare, Microsoft's director of product management for Windows said of OneStat's statistics.
On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania State University's Information Technology Services department recommended that students drop IE in favor of Firefox and Apple Computer's Safari to reduce attacks through vulnerabilities in the Microsoft software. The university said "media reports" and a string of warnings by Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Emergency and Response Team led to its recommendation.
Malicious code writers have targeted security holes in the browser to launch attacks or install spyware. These attacks are often launched when a victim clicks on a specific Web link, opening the door for criminals to take over the person's computer. Once the PC is compromised, the attacker could access account information, load other software and delete files.
