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New Browser Versions Will Bring Benefits To Web Users

Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4 and a Chrome update have accelerated the browser wars, and users will benefit from new capabilities. Most surprising for IE9, Firefox 4, and Chrome is standards compliance. Even Microsoft has moved to HTML5 compliance and has added tracking protection. That will make it harder for Firefox and Chrome to grow.

Microsoft  said Wednesday that its Internet Explorer 9 browser was downloaded 2.35 million times in the first 24 hours since it become available to the public Monday night. However, this is just a trickle compared to the numbers Microsoft will begin to rack  up next Tuesday, when it begins to automatically update Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7 users to the new browser as part of its regular Patch Tuesday.
Not to be outdone, Mozilla confirmed Wednesday that its new Firefox 4 browser will begin shipping next Tuesday. With Google also recently releasing a major upgrade to its Chrome browser, this is certainly a great time for web users because the competition for the best browser has really advanced, noted Al Hilwa, director of applications development software at IDC.

"The depth and reach of the all the modern browsers is stunning, with great improvements in usability, performance and, perhaps most surprisingly, standards compliance ," Hilwa explained. "There is definitely differentiation, but it is increasingly more subtle and over time the leapfrogging will continue to give us better products on faster cycles."

Closing the Gap

Mozilla's developers have certainly upped their game with Firefox 4 and are trying hard to fight the battle with Chrome for the power  user, where Chrome has gained share. "I think this release will help them tremendously," Hilwa said. "IE9 has had a long development cycle, but a lot has changed since it was first announced."

The level of HTML5 support that Microsoft announced just a few months ago was a real surprise and represented an unexpected ramping up of support for the new standard, Hilwa noted. "At this point, IE9 appears to have now closed the gap in HTML5 compliance for the most part and has made great strides in performance due to its strong hardware -acceleration architecture," Hilwa explained.

One of IE9's distinguishing capabilities is the browser's powerful implementation of tracking protection, which places more control in the hands of users than any other browser. "I think this may prove to be one of the most important differentiators for corporate adoption," Hilwa said. "IE9 has enviable market share in the enterprise , which gives it a lot of market stability."

Innovation Challenges

Though Net Applications' data  show that IE has lost about 20 percentage points of market share since the end of 2007, IE9 will make it harder for rivals to post major gains at Microsoft's expense going forward.

"If you're Microsoft, the positives are that you still have over 57 percent of all browsing usage market share, and the losses in share are slowing down," Net Applications Executive Vice President Vince Vizzaccaro noted earlier this year.

On the other hand, browser innovations will continue to challenge Microsoft and the other major browser makers to keep pace, since this category has the primary user interface for web applications, Hilwa observed. "Products like Rockmelt integrate popular social networks into the browser framework, targeting an important and growing segment of users," Hilwa said.

With respect to the future of the browser market, Vizzaccaro expects mobile to become the dominant growth engine, and it's one crucial area in which Microsoft has not yet leveraged IE9's performance gains. Still, Hilwa noted that IE9 is Microsoft's key code base for a Windows browser and it will eventually make its way into Windows derivatives.

"I expect an HTML5-capable browser will be available for Windows Phone 7 in the next three to six months," Hilwa said.

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