Internet Explorer and Safari have always depended on the fact that they came automatically installed on a new computer or Operating System upgrade.
More recently, Microsoft has tried to shove IE down people’s throats by forcing upgrades to IE8 as part of their automatic update service.
Someone had to go out of their way to install, then set as a default, another browser.
Microsoft and Apple’s general approach seems to be to make IE and Safari just good enough so people don’t bother.
The fact that Firefox and now, Chrome have seen their market share rise, rise, and continue to rise, makes it obvious that people like them.
There are a few reasons for switching:
1. They are cool and all your friends are using them. Don’t underestimate the importance of this factor. I am sure there are places where people wouldn’t be caught dead using IE.
2. Security. Reports I’ve seen indicate Chrome to be the most secure, IE (surprise) the least.
3. Features. For example Tabs have been around for a few years and are now completely standard in browsers. The fact that IE was slow in rolling out this capability undoubtedly contributed to a loss of market share.
4. Support for new technology. For example, the image type of choice for the web has for some years now been .png (not .jpg). But IE was slow in fully implementing support for them. Again, lost market share.
Apple mobile platforms (iPhones and iPads) will not support Flash. Yet Flash is THE technology for motion on the web at this time. This undoubtedly leads to some portion of people buying Android and other (non-Apple) mobile Operating System devices.
The newest web technologies, WebGL, HTML5 and CSS3, promise great things such as spectacular 3D capability. They are just starting to roll out and most browsers don’t support them or don’t fully support them.
You can see examples of this at Firefox’s demo website. IF you are using one of the latest browsers, Firefox 4 (just out of Beta) or Chrome 9.
So you have the chicken-or-egg situation where developers won’t use them, but then there’s no reason to have a browser that supports them.
Except that is a tale that has played out many times.
In the end the new technology wins. The only question is how fast.
The hidden factor in this is how fast new versions of browser roll out. At one end of the spectrum, Internet Explorer is running on about a 3 year cycle. That means they are always 3 years behind the times, compared to Chrome which is rolling out major versions about every 3 months. Firefox is next fastest and Safari in 3rd place.
Microsoft is now frantically rolling out IE9 (and trying to kill off IE6) but they’ve got a different motivation – they are trying to keep the momentum going for Bing (which has been gaining some market share on Google recently).
How does it all shake out? I just see Chrome and Firefox continuing to gain market share. The days of IE’s domination are not just over – they are long gone.
And that is a GOOD thing.