Anilrgowda

MORE than a fifth of Australians now use the Mozilla Firefox web browser, even though site compatibility issues mean it sometimes must be used in conjunction with Microsoft's Internet Explorer, researcher Nielsen Net Ratings says.

In a report detailing Australian internet use in 2006, Nielsen reported that Microsoft's Internet Explorer was still dominant in the market, with 81 per cent. Firefox accounted for 22 per cent of the market, while Apple's Safari was the third most popular at 5 per cent. The proportion of those unsure of what browser they were using (5 per cent), was higher than the market share of browsers such as Netscape (4 per cent) and Opera (1 per cent).
At 22 per cent, Firefox's share of the Australian market was higher than it was globally, with the open-source browser used by 14 per cent of users in July last year, Nielsen reported, citing data from e-janco.com.
Nielsen found that 18 per cent of Australians used more than one browser, with site compatibility cited as the most common reason, followed by features and security.
Among those who use more than one browser, Firefox users are the most likely (57 per cent) to use this browser most times when connecting to the internet, compared with 51 per cent of IE users who said the same thing about Internet Explorer," the NetRatings report says.
"This result, in conjunction with site compatibility as a driver for using more than one browser, indicated Firefox users are slightly more dedicated to use of that browser," it says.
Compatibility issues usually involve websites designed mainly for Internet Explorer failing to display correctly in other browsers.
The release of Internet Explorer 7, which, like Firefox, offers tabbed browsing windows, prior to Microsoft's Windows Vista was widely perceived as an attempt by Microsoft to prevent further loss of market share, the report says.