Some 13 million people have downloaded Mozilla's Firefox browser since its release in November 2004, and its momentum continues to grow. Already, Firefox's popularity has caused Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser to drop below the 90 percent mark -- the first time this has happened in years.

Still, some are questioning whether Firefox will ever be able to threaten Microsoft's monopoly over basic Web-accessing software. One of the biggest hurdles for Firefox to overcome is the tendency of Web authors to code their sites to work with IE. As such, there are many Web sites and applications that work better with IE than with Firefox or other browsers.

Further, many corporate IT departments have long used Mircrosoft's IE, and switching to another browser in the near future would be impractical and unnecessary for most.

Mozilla's Firefox Goal

With Firefox, Mozilla hopes to gain 10 percent market share in the browser market in 2005. This would represent a real feat as other second-tier browsers like Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Netscape are still in the single digits.

To do this, the company plans to hire staff to hunt out IE-only sites and encourage authors to use standards-based coding methods. According to Mozilla, which regularly tests 1,700 of the most popular Web sites to compare how they work in IE and Firefox, Firefox is 98 percent compatible with Web content on those sites -- up from 75 percent in 2000.

It appears that their goal may be in reach, as Mozilla reports that Web authors are increasingly receptive to using standards-based coding as Firefox continues to win market share. They receive 10 to 15 calls per week from people looking to make their sites compatible with the browser.

Even their biggest competitor, Microsoft, has reportedly become more open to making its Web pages available through Firefox.

CNET News December 24, 2004