What’s this guy smoking?
This Matt Asay guy at News.com has written a post taking Mac users to task for not using Firefox as much as Matt Asay thinks they should. He writes:
In the midst of counting the total number of Linux users in the world, Mozilla’s Asa Dotzler reveals a startling statistic:
The Mac only accounts for roughly 7 percent of active Firefox browser installations.
Sure, Windows has massive market share, but I would have thought more Mac users would be running Firefox than their Windows peers. Meaning, I had assumed that whereas Windows users would be content to let inertia guide them to Internet Explorer (IE), a greater proportion of Mac owners would make the choice for Firefox, instead of Safari that comes preinstalled on the Mac, netting the Mac a greater percentage of active Firefox installations.
[...] Imagine what Mozilla’s Firefox could do on a level playing field.
Um… what?
First, what does this 7% number tell us? I assume it is measuring worldwide share of Firefox users. Does that tell us anything? It seems like we would have to know the overall share of Mac users to give that number any meaning.
Over here, we see that the Mac’s share of retail sales, presumably in the US only, is about 13% and was recently as high as 16%. But a lot of computers are bought outside of retail channels, particularly in business where Windows is more dominant, so the real US share is probably much lower.
What’s more, the Mac’s worldwide share is lower still — outside the US they don’t sell nearly as well. And Mac market share has risen dramatically over the past couple of years, so the Mac’s worldwide installed base is even lower yet, probably in the low single digits. This is all kind of rough but at least it shows that saying that “only” 7% of all Firefox users are on Macs tells us absolutely nothing about what percentage of Mac users are using Firefox. Heck, it could be all of them for all we know.
What’s more, who cares? People on Windows switch to Firefox from Internet Explorer because IE sucks. IE has laughable standards support and pathetic security. But the Mac’s preinstalled browser, Safari, compared to Firefox, has better standards support, renders pages faster, launches faster, runs scripts faster, is less ugly, and is better integrated with the Mac’s user interface. About the only thing FF for Mac has going for it is that it runs extensions and you can install new themes, features that you can hardly blame anyone for not giving a crap about. So saying that those Mac-using dullards have failed to see the light regarding FF’s self-evident superiority and general awesomeness is a bit unconvincing.
I’m not trying to rip Firefox here, it’s a perfectly decent browser and in fact I’m using FF for Mac right now because I like some of the extensions. But still. Come on.
