If you're not yet among the percentage of the population people using Mozilla's Firefox browser, which by one count stands at 47.5 percent, perhaps the anniversary of its launch will give you cause. Yesterday was Firefox's fifth birthday, and its market share with co-leader Internet Explorer by many counts continues to grow while Microsoft's continues to shrink.
First released on Nov. 9, 2004, Firefox is now used by more than 330 million people worldwide, according to Mozilla.org, which itself reports Firefox market share at 24.7 percent, according to October 2009 numbers from netapplications .com, which researches market share. In fact, the organization in an Oct. 5 report cited that Firefox had increased its market share by four percent in a single month (September, 2009) based on a trend the firm began following with the June release of Firefox 3.5.