I think Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and even Opera should all thank Mozilla and Firefox for continuing to push the bar for innovative browsing. It doesn’t matter who had what feature first.  The thing that does matter is that with all the most recent browser innovations, like the search box or tabbed browsing – Firefox made it cool and useful to do so.

What Mozilla needs to do is find out what the next best feature is going to be.  What can they do that the other browsers can’t?

One more important feature to Firefox’s success is the huge fan base that Mozilla has built. Don’t write Firefox out of the browser wars just yet. I have a feeling that Mozilla will see to it that they stay competitive out there. The browser competition is good for all of us because it means we will get better web browsing experiences – no mater which browser we use.

According to a recent Mozilla analyst report for the first quarter of 2010, Firefox is in control of 30% of the world’s internet browser landscape. How was this number reached?  They combined several reliable sources, such as StatCounter, Quantcast, Net Applications, and Gemius.  The only continent not highlighted was Antarctica, due to usage number for Firefox being somewhere in the 80s.

Here are a few more interesting facts found in this report:

• Firefox adoption is growing by leaps and bounds in Russia
• People start their day latest in New York, and earliest in Hawaii and Wyoming
• Personas are most popular in South America
• Averaging population to add-on downloads, Antarctica wins!  With a total population of around 1,000, there were 538 add-on downloads.

You can download the PDF yourself to check out the statistics, or check out the summary write up done at blog.mozilla.com.

Want to know exactly how you are making use of the Firefox web browser?  Here are six of the best add-ons for Firefox that will give you every statistic you would ever want from your own day to day usage.  From cache, to download usage, and even easy cache status – we have something here for everybody to make use of.

Net Usage Item – Displays a progress bar of your Internet usage (grabbed from your ISP) on your Firefox Toolbar.

Usage Counter – Tells you how much time you have spent using Firefox and browsing sites.

StatusbarEx – Show some useful information on status bar of Firefox, such as the memory usage of system & Firefox itself, network speed, system power status, etc.

Minimeter – Monitor your provider’s upload/download usage meter.

DataFox – Check your BSNL DataOne and MTNL Triband bandwidth utilization in Firefox at the click of a button. A color coded progress bar and bandwidth usage tracking helps you stay within your monthly cap and efficiently utilize your bandwidth.

Cache Status – Easy cache status & management from the status bar.

Know of another favorite usage add-on that didn’t make it to the list?  Be sure to leave your suggestions in the comments!

• Best 5 Firefox 3 Theme Alternatives
• Darkest Popular Themes for Firefox 3
• The Best Greasemonkey Scripts
• Change the Default Search in Firefox
• Super Mario Bros 3 Firefox Theme
• Security Zone Policy Error in Firefox 3
• 20 Tips to Tweak Your Tabs
• Give Firefox 3 Firefox 2’s Address Bar
• Think You Lost Your Firefox Bookmarks?
• 25 Tweaks for Your Firefox Status Bar

Have a favorite post of yours that didn’t make it on the list?  Feel free to share it in the comments, and maybe we can put together a user’s list of some of the favorites we have had here over the years.

The opt-in project will give anonymous information about your Firefox usage. 

After either a specified amount of time or upon completion of a specific action, Test Pilot will prompt the user for feedback. The feedback form will only ask a few questions selected from a much larger set. A link will be provided to provided more comprehensive unstructured feedback or bug reports.

The feedback question will be randomly distributed to make sure they reach a wide enough demographic as well.   The information will then be posted automatically to the Test Pilot web site.  What do participants get?  They will receive a flight badge on their Test Pilot profile and will be able to embed this badge on their web site, social networking profile and more. 

For more information on the project, check out the Mozilla Labs post on the topic and if you are interested in discussing it with others, be sure to check out the Mozilla Labs forum on the Test Pilot program.

The Browser Statistics extension for Firefox will let you know the following:

- data currently loaded (KBytes)
- total data loaded (KBytes/MBytes) since last start of the browser
- number of visited pages

I am sure there might be a reason for knowing all of this, but I can’t really think of any that sound impressive. You’ll just become that annoying guy that sits at the dinner table and says, “Hey, you know how many megabytes I downloaded this morning Honey?”.

+ Download and Install the Browser Statistics Extension for Firefox!

When you happen upon a new web site – or you’re just interested in finding more about one you frequent all the time – it’s difficult to get a sense of how popular it is, how long it’s been around, what people are saying about it and how much it’s been bookmarked. The About This Site Firefox extension offers one click access to web services that compile just that kind of information for you.

Want to know more about any Web site? This would be a good place to start.

+ Read More on the About This Site Extension for Firefox!

The Net Usage Project is aimed at providing internet usage indicators for the Firefox browser. It works by fetching numbers from an XML feed or usage web page provided by the ISP. This project is targeted towards Australian Broadband Users whose broadband connections are encumbered with download (and sometimes upload) limits. However, this meter can be adapted for any country’s ISP who provides a XML usage data feed.

+ Download and Install the Net Usage Item Extension for Firefox!

+ Firefox vs IE: The battle of the stats
+ New statistics show Firefox is moving steadily to the top

[Learn More About BOINC Stats!]