[james99]

Oh, IE, it pains us to do this to you. You who once so mightily won in the battle against Netscape Navigator now seem to be losing your war against a battalion of upstarts, relatively fresh faces like Firefox and Chrome. According to StatCounter, IE's global usage stats have fallen to 49.87 percent, a fraction of a tick beneath half. Firefox makes up the lion share of the rest, at 31.5 percent, while Chrome usage tripled since last year, up to 11.54 percent. Two years ago IE had two thirds of the global market locked down, and even if Internet Explorer 9 is the best thing since ActiveX, well, we just don't see the tide of this battle turning without MS calling in some serious reinforcements.

 

[Arthur Dent]

The Better Headline:

The Browser of God had 3.5% last year, and now took over the world by climbing to mind blowing 11.54%.

 

[DT1]

I stopped using IE a few years back, went to Firefox, and then to Chrome. Downloaded IE9 last week and have been using it and I like it better than Chrome.

 

[stampeder]

Competition and diversity in web browsers is a huge consumer win, so its great to see people recognizing that.

 

[Fitnessbuff1975]

IE has lost its popularity. I was a regular user of IE but now I prefer Google Chrome and Firefox. They always try to upgrade their browser with new add-ones, plugins or software.

 

[DT1]

You should check out IE9

 

[hugh]

Been following the trends for several years. Longer term, my guess is IE will continue to fall to about 45% of the market, Google 25%, Firefox 20% and the rest being Safari and Opera.

Google is now 8%, up from 3% a year ago. Firefox is flat or falling slightly hence why I see them settling in around 20%.

 

[TKG26]

IE will probably drop some more before it rises. With zero XP support for IE9.. Many say XP is dead and while it maybe dead, still XP is the most popular(or should i say used) OS..

OS:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

BROWSERS:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

 

[hugh]

Those W3 numbers are really low and don't jibe with Statcounter and NetMarketshare.

FYI,

Statcounter which James99 link highlights is significantly different than NetMarketShare which is what I follow.

NetMarketShare has IE's share at 59.6% but still down from 75% two years ago and 95% at its peak. It also has Firefox and Google signifcantly lower that Statcounter.

Regardless of which market research firm you believe the trends are similar

 

[gorilla]

Those W3 numbers are really low and don't jibe with Statcounter and NetMarketshare.

I think that part of the difference you get from different samples is at least partially based upon how much you weight Europe.

With the browser choice box it's clear that there are greater numbers of Europeans who are choosing alternative browsers than North Americans. By forcing people to make a choice it's no longer automatic to go with IE, and people who are less technical may feel that this allows them to install an alternative without having to worry, while their equivilants in North America may not feel confident enough to change.

 

[ALSto]

You think maybe also the downward trend of IE is due to scripts & malicious code exploits?

Seems these days web developers are doing much better at non-IE support and I guess some of the above stats explain why.

I like my Firefox because I can easily disable flash & ad content. I don't really use Windows outside work so can't say if there are any IE equivalents to AdBlock.

 

[99semaj]

IE9 might help stop the hemorraghing, but it's going to take a long time for people to be able trust Microsoft again.

To quote a senior spokesperson for security firm Sophos this week:

"There may be some who would say that Microsoft shouldn't be on the internet until they get their own house in order."

 

[Wayne]

How is web browser defined in these stats? Are mobile phones counted in the overall stats? What about the iPad? IMHO these types of stats are going to become a lot less meaningful given the market share advances of tablets, smartphones, etc. I am pretty sure that I have read that China has more people accessing the net from phonesnthan from PCs! And I wouldn't be surprised if that was also the case in India.

 

[stampeder]

See their FAQ. They proactively track certain browsers:

BROWSERS: What browsers do you track?

To see the list of browsers currently tracked, please select the "Browser" statistic and choose the "Bar" graph option. Next click "Download Data" - the downloaded file will list all browsers currently tracked.

and they sift through all www browser strings to identify the platform:

MOBILE: How do you track mobile devices?

We track over 15 billion pageloads per month across the StatCounter network of over 3 million websites. We analyze every hit in order to gather as much information as possible. With each hit a useragent string is sent which allows us to determine the the browser and operating system used and also to establish if the hit came from a mobile device. In this way we determine the usage of mobile devices, browsers and operating systems.

http://gs.statcounter.com/faq

 

[stampeder]

Interesting that even the most facile, cursorial look at the graphs on the Statcounter site indicates that amongst the continents, Europe (which enforces the rule whereby Microsoft must present a fair menu choice for choosing a default web browser from amongst several makers) shows the closest competition amongst users.

 

[Wayne]

Since the Statcounter site uses Flash it isn't viewable iPads or many smartphones. And even when they give stats for Safari - does that include Safari on all OSes including iOSes?