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  • IE market share dropping

    I can remember IE's share being in the high 80's, at least, not too long ago....

    Link....

    Microsoft's browser sees notable decline in usage

    January 4th, 2009

    Microsoft Corp.'s Internet browser lost a notable number of users during the last half of 2008, according to recently published data, a trend that underscores the growing competition in a market long dominated by the software giant.

    According to data from research firm Net Applications, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser registered a 68 percent market share in December, compared to a nearly 74 percent share as recently as May.

    While the decrease is relatively slight, it is nonetheless significant for a technology that has enjoyed an extended period of dominance. Microsoft first zeroed in on browser technology in the 1990s as a means to fend off and ultimately crush upstart rival Netscape Communications Corp.

    More recently, Microsoft has seen a three-pronged assault on its market dominance. That's due to the increasing use of Apple Inc.'s Mac computers using the company's Safari browser, the growing popularity of the open-source Firefox browser offered by the Mozilla Foundation and Google Inc.'s release earlier this year of its own browser, called Chrome.

    Firefox captured a 21 percent market share in December, compared to 18 percent in May, according to Net Applications, while Apple's Safari captured a nearly 8 percent share in December, compared to a 6 percent share in May.

    Google's Chrome, meanwhile, grew from a 0.7 percent share in October to just over 1 percent in December, according to the data.

    Google released Chrome in September, touting it as a faster and more secure way to access the Web. Browsers are strategically important pieces of technology, which can be used by companies such as Google and Microsoft to foster the use of their own respective Internet services and applications.

    The nonprofit Mozilla Foundation had released the latest version of Firefox in June and the browser was downloaded more than 8 million times on its first day of availability.

    The Mozilla Foundation was spun off by AOL in 2003 to further develop the code for the Netscape browser as Firefox. As an open-source project, the Firefox browser is able to use input from a vast array of engineers not directly employed by Mozilla.

    Net Applications cautioned that the high amount of residential use of the Web during the holidays in December may have accounted for increased usage of Firefox, Safari, Chrome and other non-Microsoft browsers. Microsoft's Internet Explorer is generally the preferred Web-browsing tool for office use.
    Dr. Mordrid
    ----------------------------
    An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

    I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

  • #2
    I've been using Chrome literally since the day it was introduced. Despite not being as feature rich as some other browsers, it's speed and simplicity is simply too much to give up.
    Q9450 + TRUE, G.Skill 2x2GB DDR2, GTX 560, ASUS X48, 1TB WD Black, Windows 7 64-bit, LG M2762D-PM 27" + 17" LG 1752TX, Corsair HX620, Antec P182, Logitech G5 (Blue)
    Laptop: MSI Wind - Black

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    • #3
      The latest statistics to one of my web sites, over the last 10 days:

      Rank Browser Page Views Visits Hits Bandwidth
      (KB)
      1 Unknown 316 1,367 1,871 11,261,172
      2 IE 1,435 1,122 3,251 1,366,498
      3 Bots, Spiders 854 597 1,009 81,900
      4 Firefox 351 272 1,003 500,314
      5 Safari 75 48 192 152,622
      6 Netscape 16 17 72 57,747
      7 Opera 26 15 55 75,900
      8 Gecko-based 1 2 3 28,408
      9 Mozilla Suite 0 1 1 28,406
      Total(s) 3,074 3,441 7,457 13,552,967
      Average(s) 341 382 828 1,505,885

      This suggests that the IE:FF ratio is such that IE users are more superficial in their browsing while FF users work more in exploring the site. I'm curious, though, about the "unknowns" which suck up a lot of bandwidth; I suggest that this may include Media Players watching streaming video.
      Brian (the devil incarnate)

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      • #4
        Could also be Google. I've read a couple of articles lately that they're developing an operating system and that its developers/testers etc. have been causing a lot of unidentifiable hits.
        Dr. Mordrid
        ----------------------------
        An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

        I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

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        • #5
          Netscape? Seriously? Wow.
          I think it is time for a poll...
          Q9450 + TRUE, G.Skill 2x2GB DDR2, GTX 560, ASUS X48, 1TB WD Black, Windows 7 64-bit, LG M2762D-PM 27" + 17" LG 1752TX, Corsair HX620, Antec P182, Logitech G5 (Blue)
          Laptop: MSI Wind - Black

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          • #6
            I'm not sure if "IE market share dropping" is a good news/thread title...nothing new after all

            btw, stats for my country:

            IE - 48%
            Gecko (almost exlusively Firefox) - 42%
            Opera - 8%
            Webkit/KHTML (Safari, Konqueror, Chrome) - 1%

            Looking quite good...though I'd prefer the situation towards which Ukraine seems to go:

            IE - 47%
            Opera - 30%
            Gecko - 21%
            Webkit/KHTML - 2%

            Now, if it weren't for poor results of Webkit, their market share of browsers seems to go towards roughly equal share of every major engine (Opera & Gecko seem to grow at aboout the same rate) - perfect situation IMHO.

            PS. And those results are a month old/no results were published during holiday season, which surely would show even higher share of non-IE browsers.

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            • #7
              Webkit hasn't been available for Windows for that long yet (a version of buggy Safari for a long time). Now with chrome and Safari maturing, I expect it to eat into IE's and Firefox' marketshare the next few years.

              Opera will remain small like always (on desktop, they dominate on the handheld market? webkit is gaining traction there though).

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              • #8
                Oh I'm not sure if always...it is quite widespread in central and eastern Europe (Russia is supposedly even better for it then Ukraine, though I don't have the numbers).

                One should ask why is that? IMHO because:
                a) many people have a really old hardware, Opera has by far the best performance on slower machines
                b) they depend on "friendly geeks" much more, I guess (a neccesity when your PC was assembled in home/you bought the cheapest possible laptop without Windows included (and typicaly with non-functional Linux... :/ ))

                Can similar circumstances happen in W Europe and N America? Lets see...netbooks are on the rise, and Opera runs much better on them (not only performance-wise, also fit-to-screen/etc. functions which make it work generally better). Also, beeing so cheap, they can't have good support (some friendly geek will most likely repair them at some point)...and btw, this time Linux installations are mostly functional, luckily.

                Though not many people know about it; it doesn't have the PR that Firefox got over the years. And even if some know, they usually don't know how much lighter it ends up beeing...

                Of course it would need also some new skin for netbooks and a little push from Opera software...which they don't seem to be willing to do (otoh they made a version for the OLPC XO-1...)

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