Market share of IE has finally gone below 90% percent. Firefox now has 5M users. Not bad for a 1.0 product after less than a month. I'm sure the folks at MSFT are moving quick to copy the good ideas. Maybe they'll even create new standards to slow down innovation.

Firefox 1.0 -- a new browser -- is now released. I've been using a beta for a few months, and I'm loving it. I can't say the same thing about mozilla or opera. Firefox has a few big advantages over IE:
- Tabbed browsing (I don't end up with 15 open IE windows at the end of the day)
- Mouse-less browsing (I can type 'wordOnLink to highlight a link and click enter)
- No spyware
- Change for the sake of change
- Fast install (4Mb download)

Now I do miss one thing about IE: the Google Toolbar. I miss the next/prev buttons when browsing the top few google search results, and I miss the search keyword highlighting.

The user base for Firefox is growing really fast -- I think they are doubling every month or so from an article I read. This is a perfect example of why competition is needed in any industry. IE had no competition for years and the team stopped all innovation. IE looks pretty much like the versions back in 99. Microsoft did win the browser war, but it failed the users by never making browsing and the internet a better place (of course, that makes sense as the browser marginalizes the windows platform).

I'm really happy that I finally have a viable alternative. Remember that like any drug, you might have withdrawal symptoms. But rest free; you'll detox quickly.