In spite of recent market gains and over 25 million downloads in the past 100 days, the Firefox browser is failing to keep up with expected growth against Microsoft's Internet Exlorer.

Market analyst, WebSideStory, reported the findings. Figures show a 34 percent increase of Firefox users at the close of 2004. This slowed to a 22 percent increase and then a more modest 15 percent increase in the five weeks leading up to February 18, 2005.

According to WebSideStory's chief executive, Jeff Lnsford, Firefox had hoped to secure a 10 percent share in the overall browser market by mid-2005. While this figure is still obtaininable, it will require Firefox to step it up a notch and increased activity from the Mozilla (download) Foundation.

WebSideStory puts Firefox usage at 5.6 percent of the browser market. Coming in at number three in the web browser stake is Apple's Safari. Microsoft still dominates them both with 89 percent of all browser users using Internet Explorer.

Mozillazine