Project tOASSad (toward Open Source Software Adoption and dissemination), a EU funded initiative that aims to improve the outcomes of the Free/Open Source Software communities throughout Europe has released the results of its latest study: Usability of F/OSS, focused on GNU/Linux, OpenOffice.org and Firefox.

The 15 questions related with Firefox usability were designed by The Internet Society Bulgaria and answered by 205 respondents. Among the results:

58% answered they have been using Firefox for more than 1 year and 25% between 6 months and a year.

Tabbed browsing was the top reason for users to switch to Firefox (75%), followed by it being free (70%, though it’s not explained if free means no cost or libre), user friendly (69%), lots of features (64%), more secure (54%), best option for my OS (43%), stable (36%) and other reasons  (11%).

Convenience of keyboard shortcuts was rated 6 out of 6 by a 19%, 5 by 45%, and 4 by 25%.

On ease of use, 64% gave it the maximum score (6/6), 29% gave it 5 and 5%, 4.

Comprehensibility of terms: 58% awarded 6 points (again, out of 6), 33% 5 points, and 7% 14.

Regarding functionality, 49% found it complete (6/6), a 41% rated it with 5 and 7%with 4.

78% of respondents found it very easy to install followed by a 16% who foundit just easy (5/6).

Overall performance was rated 6/6 by 52%, 5/6 by 33% and 4/6 by 10% of the participants.

Impressive numbers for any application indeed.  The full report is available for an interesting read on OpenOffice.org and GNU/Linux performances as well.

Thanks to Brian King for the pointer.