The statistics page for Greasemonkey is visible to everyone. The raw data is even available for download. But it can be hard to read, due to the level of detail and formatting that is applied. So, I've taken the time to analyze it carefully. The first interesting thing that we can see is the usage trends over time:
(Looks like Mozilla had a reporting issue around May of 2009.)I've also made a pie-graph of app usage, for the average values of the past 4 weeks:
That pie chart represents these numbers:| App | Users | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Firefox/<=1.0 | 598 | 0.02% |
| Firefox/1.5 | 5502 | 0.21% |
| Firefox/2.0 | 113921 | 4.31% |
| Firefox/3.0 | 1470584 | 55.70% |
| Firefox/>=3.5 | 1049092 | 39.74% |
| Other | 446 | 0.02% |
So, let's say first off: we know this is a bad measurement. There's (almost) no "other" because there's no official support for other platforms, so only third party alterations make this usage possible. Thus, this data doesn't help us answer (i.e.) "Should we support Flock?" or "Should we support SongBird?".
It does let us know a little bit about what versions of Firefox we should support. All of 1.0 and 1.5 make up only 0.23% of the user base. Firefox 3.0 and 3.5 make up 95.44% of the user base. Firefox 2, however, makes up 4.31% of the user base. That's a much harder call.
Hackers: The raw data and charts behind this post is available on Google Docs. You can also see the python script that turned AMO's raw data into this presentation.
There is no reason other than inertia to use Firefox 2.0. Greasemonkey is for power users who can be expected to upgrade.
ReplyDelete"Greasemonkey is for power users who can be expected to upgrade."
ReplyDeleteExactly my thoughts. Don't support older versions, I say. Focus on fixing all those bugs and requests instead.
I say drop FF2 support, and we still cover ~95% of the users, and they still have older versions to use, that's a decent situation.
ReplyDeleteHi, firefox recently updated and Grease Monkey will not load. Will there be an update soon?
ReplyDeletelatest version of gm is supported by latest version of ff
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this tool,
ReplyDeletebut frankly, chrome is the way of the future.
Thanks for your work!
Does Extenze Work
I absolutely love this addon :)I've updated my firefox to the current 3.5.3 version but greasemonkey doesn't seem to work :( Am I missing something?
ReplyDeleteIncompatible Extension
ReplyDeleteGreasemonkey 0.8.20090123.1 could not be installed because it is not compatible with Firefox 3.5.3.
(this is the error I get. re above comment)
Could it be possible that User Agents Switching could possibly screw the results up?
ReplyDeleteSome people pass the responsibility to expert writers because they miss the ability to compose a respectable paper about Greasemonkey in order that the reason why students need to use plagiarism detection, but such customers like writer don't do that. Thank you very much for the article
ReplyDeleteChrome will never be the future unless it implements an addon system, fixes it's tab system, stability issues, and makes a better theme system among others, but why wait on Chrome when we have a great browser already? Chrome may end up being the future, but not until it catches up to the present. Hey, at least it beats Internet Failsplorer.
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