According to web statistics firm WebSideStory, at the start of this month Firefox had a browser market usage share of 8.88 percent, about double the 4.23 percent it boasted at the same time in 2005. This might sound like small beer, but according to statisticians the last time a non-Microsoft browser achieved close to a nine percent market share was Netscape in April 2002. Even then, and ever since, Internet Explorer (IE) has dominated.

The growth of non-IE browsers has Microsoft scurrying round tinkering with its offering, but it should also encourage web site designers to start designing their sites so Firefox and other non-IE browsers can use them.

Shutting the door in the face of a Firefox user is the online equivalent of barring someone from a shop because you don’t like their tie or reckon that their eyes are too close together. It is pointless, stupid, ill thought out (if at all) and costly. Yet, many sites do it. According to web site testing firm SciVisum, for as many users that Firefox has, there are as many inaccessible sites.

Like UB40 sang, “there is a rat in my kitchen”. Sorry, I mean, “I am the one-in-10 – a statistic, a reminder, of a world that doesn’t care.” I am a proud Firefox user and advocate. When using other people’s computers I always ask, “Don’t you have Firefox?” And, if they do not, as is often the case, I tell them of its many benefits, which admittedly until recently totalled one – tabbed browsing.

For those of you in the dark about what that means, Slade have split up, that plastic hopper thing you ride on just scares children, your polyester suit is starting fires, and tabbed browsing is the ability to open up new pages within the same pane – removing the multitude of windows that once cluttered your taskbar. In my case, it has become indispensable.

Gradually, I have adopted many of the browsers’ other features. It has a built-in search box, which means that I do not even have to switch to a search engine page from any open window. To this box I have added the ability to search the Internet Movie Database, Yahoo, Amazon, Creative Commons, eBay, oh, and some work-related stuff, probably.

I play the Xbox live game Halo 2 and check my scores, stats and ratings using the automatically updated RSS feeds I can access through the browser. Likewise I use live bookmarks to check out my friends’ recent uploads in the online photo album Flickr, and the news feeds from providers such as the BBC and IT Week’s own web site. Firefox also blocks pop-ups with ease, and locks out spyware, worms and viruses – well, so far, anyway.

Truth be told, the only time I ever use Internet Explorer is out of necessity, and then I find myself trying to use the shortcuts I associate with my usual browser – actions that only serve to further highlight its shortcomings.

The next burst of browser releases will have to be exciting to attract interest, but perhaps it is where they are most boring that their strengths will really lie.

Come on in the future stars of browsing with your true accessibility features, behind-the-scenes security and lack of proprietary technologies. We are waiting.