Browser Statistics October 2010
Many sites reported today that Internet Explorer's overall market share fell below 50% for the very first time. When it comes to statistics, it always pays to ask for the source so that you can verify what is been claimed by yourself.
All websites who have reported on this have been using StatCounter exclusively (likely one site started it and every other site took "inspiration" from the article and used the same source).
That's fine, but does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that Internet Explorer market's share dropped below 50%. Especially not if you take a look at other web browser market share statistics.
Now, if you take into account other statistics you may come to a different conclusion. Lets take a closer look, shall we.
If you look at the three services that provide web browser market share statistics you notice big differences. W3C for instance recorded the lowest Internet Explorer market share with only 31.1%, and the highest Firefox and Google Chrome market share with 45.1% and 17.3% respectively.
The highest Internet Explorer market share was recorded by NetMarketShare with 59.56%. There is a difference of 28.55% here.
Did Internet Explorer's market share drop below 50%? According to Statcounter it did, while NetMarketShare says otherwise and W3C almost saw it break the 30% mark.
Even if you remove the W3C data you end up with a difference of nearly 10%. If you take a look at individual browser versions you notice that Internet Explorer 8 tops the statistics. Surprisingly, both StatCounter and NetMarketShare see the market share of Internet Explorer 8 around 29% followed by Firefox 3.6.
So what can we take from the statistics? Internet Explorer's market share is still dropping, affecting Internet Explorer 6 and 7. Internet Explorer 8 on the other hand increases its market share. Firefox appears to be very stagnant showing virtually no movement at all in one way or the other while Chrome is the only browser with an overall upwards trend.
Both Opera and Safari do not seem to be able to get any momentum going. Then again, those statistics are only interesting for webmasters, marketing people and some companies.
They do raise some interesting questions though. Will Internet Explorer's market share drop further, and can Microsoft stop the downwards trend with the release of Internet Explorer 9? Can Mozilla break the stagnation with Firefox 4, or will it divide the Firefox community? Will Chrome continue to rise, or will it reach stagnation at one point as well. And what about the contenders Opera and Safari, what can they do to increase their market share?
If W3C’s stats are correct, it’s good news because as a frontend web developer. It’s really hard to find a common ground when it comes to browser standards and IE just seems to make it even more difficult to come to an agreement. I know with IE9 they’re starting to loosen up and started conforming to the massess. I’m not even an anti-Microsoft kind of guy. I just find myself creating hacks to fix IE related issues.
i was a fan of firefox, but it’s getting slower and slower even on a brand-new computer. now switch to chrome, and really proud with its performance.
btw, the web translate tool plugin for chrome is excellent
Really I have passed something important, and st*pid firefox have learned to show at least one empty page?
Has checked up, and nevertheless isn’t present; as in it wasn’t JS, and hasn’t appeared; while in Internet explorer language of scenarios JS already concedes nothing to high-grade language
Down with st*pid firefox, long live Internet explorer
Great statistics! I hope that chrome will be grow and spupid lazy shitfox will leave out world
I think chrome is better. it is user friendly than FF. Opera is also good.
Why would you not include data from Wikimedia that has around 1 billion hits per month?
IE – 44.72%
Firefox – 29.67%
Chrome – 9.71%
Safari – 5.57%
Opera – 3.48%
Mobile Browser – 4.70%
is this real??
IE is at the top.. err sucks…
many people don’t know that IE is very slow…
im proud to be Opera user =)
These stats are useless.
They are not taking into account that Opera has more than 140 million users on all their browsers (desktop, mobile, etc.).
Why is everyone focusing only on the desktop market? Mobile is growing MUCH faster?
Opera actually has 7% market share (140M users, 2B online in total).
I discovered that I wrote “too soon” and not “too late” on my last post. sorry about that.
I also join to the users that find that Opera is the best browser, in speed and security. Not only have the smallest number in vulnebility by Secunia, it also is really customizable. In all the years that I’ve used Opera I have never been infected by malwares.
There is one reason for why Opera has so low user base. That is because they become free to soon (2005 IIRC) and thus did not join the main stream.
Low user base? Opera has more than 140 million users.
Don’t trust these useless stats. They claim that the desktop verison of Opera has more users than Opera Mini, which is false.
@MartinDK – http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/. As far as NoScript I browse mostly with Opera/Linux and haven’t been hit with anything malicious in 4 yrs of Opera use. Annoyances here and there but no exploits.
@Transcontinental – After visiting all your habitual web venues that need logins etc set cookies to “delete new cookies when exiting Opera”. Adding new saved cookies is awkward and I wish they would improve their cookie manager to include LSOs (flash cookies) so I agree Opera needs improvement in this area. But it’s not a show-stopper IMO.
@TRY – Opera is still quick (with Turbo off) but that’s with a Core2Duo/4 GBs Ram. With only 10 tabs open including RSS feeds it’s using 130 Megs which is probably twice what earlier versions used. But doesn’t “feature creep” infect all software development projects?
Opera should be called an “Internet Utility Suite” or something since it’s so much more then a simple web browser. The fact that it can carry so many features and functions within such a (relatively) small footprint is amazing.
But that’s part of the reason for it’s small user base. I’ve promoted Opera to a number of experienced non-techie users and they all found it was like trying to learn a new operating system.
I’ve also noticed the Windows version is more polished then the Linux version and may perform differently. I just don’t use it enough to work out the precise differences.
I wish ghacks had Opera in the category bar at the top of the page next to Firefox. I’m going to send them a request to do so here: https://www.ghacks.net/about-us/. Why don’t you join me?
@ MartinDK
Adblocking in Opera is even more simple using urlfilter.ini. There are also javascripts to handle things as NoScript does.
Actually, Opera does not support the same features that NoScript does. IIRC you need to tell Opera to block specific scripts on a page, whereas NoSCript blocks every script by default with options to whitelist some. Correct me if I’m wrong on this one.
At times Chrome left me swearing with its periodical crash but compared to IE its much way better. Even with this statistics, its too early to judged the outcome of the newest version. Complicated as it may seem cause some of us are inclined into using browser in a single window but modifications of IE specially the taskbar-tab-enabled thing takes the lead in innovation.
Opera is fast like Chrome is fast like Firefox is fast…. with no extensions and minimum plug-ins. Firefox and Chrome slow down with extensions, Opera never slows down because Opera does not handle extensions.
As far as security is concerned, it is notorious that present version of Opera (10.62) is VERY problematic with cookies issues (have a look at their forums). I tried that version of Opera no later than the past few days, had to abandon it because there were very serious cookie issues (like: forbid cookies for third-party sites and having cookies from sites like Facebook and Google when never visited). Opera is now, ever since they got hysterical over speed to the point of messing up with privacy concerns, in a knock-out before they stand back up.
Meanwhile, Chrome. Maybe shall I return to Firefox, when I notice that Chrome with many extensions becomes slower, and slower …
“it is notorious that present version of Opera (10.62) is VERY problematic with cookies issues (have a look at their forums)”
What are you talking about? I haven’t seen a single cookie issue, and there are no threads about it in their forums.
“Opera is now, ever since they got hysterical over speed to the point of messing up with privacy concerns, in a knock-out before they stand back up.”
Oh, quit whining already.
@Jack and @Sujit -Both of you definitely struck a nail there by stating Opera is the best,couldn’t agree more,in terms of security comparison,Opera is much safer and secure.
I really wish the next v.10.70 will be lighter and faster(with Turbo off)than every other browser and also a stable portable version will be provided as well.
I say it’s a matter of time for Microsoft to drop down browser (integrated) software completely, what, two, three years, more, less ? The company has lost foot with modern browser requirements, second they are far too involved with propriety concepts, third their communication is hell. Too big, too old, too fat ? No idea.
It just goes to show that around 85 % of internet users have no idea about how slow or unsecured their browser is. The 2 slowest browsers at the top.
Firefox has become the new IE, except unlike IE, it crashes every half hour. and I think Chrome will become the new FF.
Good to see the most secure and fastest browser at the bottom. lmao.
Opera is for the real users of the net.
haha…
Nah not really, firefox has never been all about speed, what’s make firefox so great is all the addons even though i like using chrome/opera/safari (mostly safari), once every 10 mins i go back to firefox to use one of the addons i have installed Firefox is more like an iPhone versus Android/Symbia/W7 etc.
Sure there are phones faster then iphone but none with so much apps to fill all of your needs.
And Firefox 4 is getting GPU acceleration so that will boost it up quite a bit ;)
Seeing as how this is where Opera fans roam, I’ll just toss this question out:
The two major reasons that I still stick with Firefox are the NoScript and Adblock Plus addons. It might be pure bollocks, but at least I get a sense of security being able to block out scripts and entire domains.
Any thoughts on how Opera deals with this – is it as good (or better)?
I have fond memories of Opera since it introduced me to mouse gestures, but I haven’t used it for many years.
Opera 11 supports extensions, one of them is AddBlock. There are also other scriptblock extensions available.
In Opera 10 it should be possible using user javascript.
Indeed, any one who know PC or net know that Opera is fastest and most secure net bowser.