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Let's not forget this little metric: mobile. These stats were taken from Statcounter which is not a comprehensive representation of the marketshare. http://i.i

Let's not forget this little metric: mobile. These stats were taken from Statcounter which is not a comprehensive representation of the marketshare. http://i.imgur.com/aOXsraC.png http://i.imgur.com/aOXsraC.png According to the same data, Google owns 87% of the mobile market, and I venture to guess that number is actually higher and will continue to climb in 2015 as mobile will continue to dominate the consumer market.

fulafel 12y ago
It's odd that Firefox isn't more popular on mobile, the competition lacks extension support so it should have a bigger edge.
- cheapsteak 12y ago
  Are extensions really useful for mobile browsers? Most things I use extensions for have their own apps (chromecast, hangouts, email)
  - fpgeek 12y ago
    I'm a big fan of Self-Destructing Cookies (on the desktop and on mobile).
  - coldpie 12y ago
    Good lord, yes. Have you ever browsed the web on mobile without AdBlock? It's nearly useless. Setting aside the bandwidth you're wasting, nearly every page redirects you to the app store or pops up a dozen shitty ads before you can see the content. I'm still baffled that ad networks allow advertisers to inject arbitrary javascript into their banner ads. Why on earth are they allowed to deliver anything other than an image? Anyways, I'll never browse the web without AdBlock again and I'm astounded that so many people are able to do so.
  - fulafel 12y ago
    With the current privacy hostile browser defaults, it's pretty much a must if you care about that department at all. (Of course it may be that nobody privacy conscious uses Android/iOS at all...)
- blueskin_ 12y ago
  Mobile firefox still lacks depth of extensions. If it could have adblock or a similar level of addon, it would probably be a different story.
  - miscellaneous 12y ago
    Firefox for Android does have adblock. Almost all of my desktop addons are available on mobile Firefox.
bad_user 12y ago
The importance of mobile marketshare is overblown. People aren't searching for things to buy on their mobile phones, the searches themselves being very superficial, the attention span being lower. As a result conversion rates and CPC is much lower on mobile. I also believe that this post-PC era has been nothing but bullshit. Yes, PC sales have been declining, but that's only because people stopped feeling the need to upgrade. And yes, mobile phones are here to stay, with their numbers rising and their utility growing, but if you take a look at tablets, lo and behold, sales are declining and the ones already bought are probably gathering dust. Most importantly is that Google's Android does not own 87% of the mobile market. If Apple would switch to an alternative as the default, that would be a big blow to Google. And if this move by Mozilla ends up working out without Firefox losing market share, that might end up encouraging Apple to do so.
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  So declining PC sales is not proof that PCs are losing popularity, but declining tablet sales is proof that tablets are losing popularity. How can the same trend mean opposite things in similar markets? Anyway, any of number of reports and studies say that the percentage of e-commerce visits and purchases from mobile devices is going up, and has been for years. Direct measurements of user activity show the growing importance of mobile.
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  Is tablet market share really decreasing? For casual users (like my mum) she has bought an iPad and no longer even turns on her PC/laptop, let alone thinks about getting another one. I thought this was the case with most "casual" PC users who only used it for email and Internet shopping. My wife fits this category, who will never use my laptop, ever. She even does basic spreadsheeting activities on the iPad with Google Sheets. Are tablets really sat around gathering dust?
  - diminish 12y ago
    I m monitoring several million MAU websites.. Smart phones are growing at the expense of tablets too. Especially the consensus on larger screen sizes boosted phone usage and cuts into tablet share.
blueskin_ 12y ago
The issue being phones are horrible to do any actual work on. People search more, yes, but for things like maps, not products or anything else search engines might conceivably make money on advertising on with the main exception being simple stuff like "nearby restaurants". Nobody wants to, for example, buy a new TV on their phone if they can at all help it; they'll do the research on a real computer and the purchase either there or instore.

fulafel 12y ago

It's odd that Firefox isn't more popular on mobile, the competition lacks extension support so it should have a bigger edge.

cheapsteak 12y ago
Are extensions really useful for mobile browsers? Most things I use extensions for have their own apps (chromecast, hangouts, email)
- fpgeek 12y ago
  I'm a big fan of Self-Destructing Cookies (on the desktop and on mobile).
- coldpie 12y ago
  Good lord, yes. Have you ever browsed the web on mobile without AdBlock? It's nearly useless. Setting aside the bandwidth you're wasting, nearly every page redirects you to the app store or pops up a dozen shitty ads before you can see the content. I'm still baffled that ad networks allow advertisers to inject arbitrary javascript into their banner ads. Why on earth are they allowed to deliver anything other than an image? Anyways, I'll never browse the web without AdBlock again and I'm astounded that so many people are able to do so.
- fulafel 12y ago
  With the current privacy hostile browser defaults, it's pretty much a must if you care about that department at all. (Of course it may be that nobody privacy conscious uses Android/iOS at all...)
blueskin_ 12y ago
Mobile firefox still lacks depth of extensions. If it could have adblock or a similar level of addon, it would probably be a different story.
- miscellaneous 12y ago
  Firefox for Android does have adblock. Almost all of my desktop addons are available on mobile Firefox.

bad_user 12y ago

The importance of mobile marketshare is overblown. People aren't searching for things to buy on their mobile phones, the searches themselves being very superficial, the attention span being lower. As a result conversion rates and CPC is much lower on mobile. I also believe that this post-PC era has been nothing but bullshit. Yes, PC sales have been declining, but that's only because people stopped feeling the need to upgrade. And yes, mobile phones are here to stay, with their numbers rising and their utility growing, but if you take a look at tablets, lo and behold, sales are declining and the ones already bought are probably gathering dust. Most importantly is that Google's Android does not own 87% of the mobile market. If Apple would switch to an alternative as the default, that would be a big blow to Google. And if this move by Mozilla ends up working out without Firefox losing market share, that might end up encouraging Apple to do so.

snowwrestler 12y ago
So declining PC sales is not proof that PCs are losing popularity, but declining tablet sales is proof that tablets are losing popularity. How can the same trend mean opposite things in similar markets? Anyway, any of number of reports and studies say that the percentage of e-commerce visits and purchases from mobile devices is going up, and has been for years. Direct measurements of user activity show the growing importance of mobile.
72deluxe 12y ago
Is tablet market share really decreasing? For casual users (like my mum) she has bought an iPad and no longer even turns on her PC/laptop, let alone thinks about getting another one. I thought this was the case with most "casual" PC users who only used it for email and Internet shopping. My wife fits this category, who will never use my laptop, ever. She even does basic spreadsheeting activities on the iPad with Google Sheets. Are tablets really sat around gathering dust?
- diminish 12y ago
  I m monitoring several million MAU websites.. Smart phones are growing at the expense of tablets too. Especially the consensus on larger screen sizes boosted phone usage and cuts into tablet share.

blueskin_ 12y ago

The issue being phones are horrible to do any actual work on. People search more, yes, but for things like maps, not products or anything else search engines might conceivably make money on advertising on with the main exception being simple stuff like "nearby restaurants". Nobody wants to, for example, buy a new TV on their phone if they can at all help it; they'll do the research on a real computer and the purchase either there or instore.