Marketing Pilgrim's Reputation Channel

Marketing Pilgrim's Reputation Channel is sponsored by Trackur.
by
19 Comments

Sentiment Analysis for Internet Explorer; Comparing to Firefox

posted on January 7, 2007



Digg!

This is another post in the “IE 7 Sucks” series. This time, I’ve been poking around at data that suggests IE 7 really is crap, and it’s not just readers of Marketing Pilgrim, that think so.

Taking a look at Opinmind, we learn that only 24% of bloggers have a positive sentiment towards Internet Explorer, compared to 69% positive with Firefox.

Switching to Technorati, we discover 632 bloggers have stated “internet explorer sucks“, compared to 274 who think the same of Firefox.

Using Google Trends, it’s clear that more people are looking to download Firefox, compared to IE. In contrast, more users are looking to uninstall Internet Explorer, than FF.

If we look at a KeywordDiscovery’s database of popular search queries, the difference is huge! 10,313 people have searched for “uninstall internet explorer”, compared to just 143 who have searched “uninstall firefox”.

Searching Google’s main index, we discover almost twice as many pages claiming “Internet Explorer sucks” (43,400), versus those thinking the same of Firefox (22,100).

When analyzing the visitors to Marketing Pilgrim, we see that more are making the switch to Firefox, as their browser of choice. In August, 51.34% of visitors used IE, compared to 41.99% using Firefox. Since then, we’ve seen the launch of IE 7 and FF 2 and a significant swing in browser use. In December, the number of FF users increased to 48.64% of all readers, with IE, dropping to 45.24%.

Finally, I continue to be amazed at the popularity of my previous two posts on the issues with IE 7.  Can you tell from the chart below, when IE 7 left beta and entered the mainstream? ;-)

In the meantime, I’ve had more than 130 negative comments about IE 7, and yet Microsoft hasn’t once stopped by the blog to explain what they are doing to improve the browser. You would think that having Robert Scoble on their staff for a few years would have taught MSFT to keep an eye on the blogosphere. If I were in charge of monitoring the reaction to IE 7, I’d certainly make sure I’d track negative search results.

Now over to you. Take a look at your own traffic logs and let me know if you’ve seen a decline in IE’s market share or feel free to share any other observations (perhaps, you’ve seen the opposite to the above).


Related Posts

Zemanta
  • http://utahseoplanet.com Christer Edwards

    Since the release of Firefox 2 I have also seen an increase in my Firefox based browser numbers. IE continues to drop and I think Microsoft did more harm than good with the UI change in IE7.

    When will they learn that most people use a program (or continue to use a program) because they know *how* to use that program. In Microsofts case they keep changing the UI.

  • Bill

    It’s just a browser.

    When people start saying Windows sux and migrate to Apple or worse *nix, then MS will care.

  • Ged

    Etre estimates that around 12.7 million websites are broken in IE7! Another reason for the browser’s fall in popularity.

  • Pingback: The Browser Den » Blog Archive » Feedback not so good on IE7

  • Pingback: Ubuntu Just Sucks Less « Ubuntu Blog

  • Mark T

    Hmmm…Is there an underlying reason that there would be 143 uninstall on Firefox vs 10,313 on IE7 (other than it simply sucks)? Since IE is the default browser for almost everyone, there is a significantly larger number of people who are using it to begin with right? Are these stats sort of circumstantial evidence?

  • http://www.marketingpilgrim.com Andy Beal

    Fair point Mark, but if we assume that Firefox has a 10% market share, wouldn’t we be seeing a number that is closer to 1430 than 143 (if all things were equal)?

  • http://tinyurl.com/rotht Heathen Dan

    I agree with Mark’s sentiment. IE just has a bigger userbase than FF. Also, IE is much harder to uninstall (it could break your system). FF, on the other hand, can be uninstalled with a few clicks. With such ease, I wouldn’t expect most people to need google to help them uninstall FF.

    And since Andy points out that FF has a 10% market share (maybe more), then his statistic that FF has half as many “FF sucks” pages as IE is more than what we would expect (if all things were equal:p).

    And no, I don’t use IE or even Microsoft (I’m posting this on Opera in Xubuntu Linux).

  • Andrew

    I work for a Fortune 500 retailer that receives several million visits per month from a user base that somewhat resembles the average internet user. For the two months before and after the IE 7.0 release, we’ve seen the following:

    IE 6.0 – Began at 89% of visits, Currently 66%
    IE 7.0 – Began at 1.5% of visits, Currently 23%
    FF – Began at 9.3% of visits, Currently 10.9%

    These numbers exclude the long tail of niche or outdated browser versions. It leads me to believe that for the average user, the IE 7.0 upgrade was not catastrophic enough to warrant switching browsers.

  • http://www.marketingpilgrim.com Andy Beal

    Heathen Dan, you weren’t supposed to notice that – ‘cos I didn’t. ;-)

  • Tahir Azhar

    Just to confirm when the search was made using KeywordDiscovery’s database, quotes were used or not around uninstall internet explorer?

  • ikt

    IE7 is fine.

    “because they know *how* to use that program. In Microsofts case they keep changing the UI.”

    They changed the UI once. IE6 to IE7.

    People are fine with it. I’ve not heard one complaint except when coming here to anti-microsoft propergander sites.

    Grow up. If Firefox really was that good it’d sell itself like google..but it doesn’t. so you lose.

  • Keith

    I have both IE7 and Firefox 2.0 running, with FF as my default. IE7 runs well with popups and Flash ads , even with MS’s blockers running (I solved some of this with NoFlash). However, it also runs JAVA applets, no sweat–latest and earlier V’s. I hate those interrupting ads to a degree I cannot express in any wholesome way.

    On the other hand, FF2.0 w AdBlock Plus wipes out almost all popups, flashing ads & banners, etc. BUT, and this is a big BUT, I cannot get FF2 or earlier to do Applets, even after spending multi-hours uninstalling all earlier JAVA V’s, cleaning out my Registry references to earlier J’s. Therefore, I am stuck with 2 browsers, neither of which solves all problems with those GD-MFg ads.

  • beerfan

    I found a IE7, which claims to be the first third party site, which lists known issues with the browser.

    http://www.ie-vista.com/known_issues.html

    When I first saw that page I thought perhaps it was a parody site, since there are so many huge issues list and instructions for uninstalling the browser, but it seems to be a sincere site. Rather telling…

  • Bill Read

    I had never considered using a different browser till IE7 caused me problems.
    I reverted back to IE6 and tried Firefox.
    I liked Firefox and made it my default browser.
    I am also surprised how much quicker my computer starts on these settings,
    Bill

  • Bill Read

    I have found this link for browser statistics http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp it shows firefox at 30%
    Bill

  • http://www.getdemocracy.com np revs

    “Searching Google’s main index, we discover almost twice as many pages claiming “Internet Explorer sucks” (43,400), versus those thinking the same of Firefox (22,100).”

    This is actually a *huge underestimation* of anti-Internet Explorer sentiment because most people refer to it as ‘IE’.

    Google gives 117,000 results for “IE sucks” and only 557 for “FF sucks”. Adding those to the searches you did, gives you these totals:

    IE / Internet Explorer Sucks: 170,000

    FF / Firefox sucks: 22,700

  • http://www.getdemocracy.com np revs

    Here’s an even better one:

    “Firefox is awesome” – 12,400

    “IE is awesome” – 246

    “Internet Explorer is awesome” – 3

  • Pingback: Ubuntu Just Sucks Less | Ubuntu Linux Help

Filed Under: Reputation, Research