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Browser Breakdown
Ars Technica sees IE popularity plunge
Ars Technica joins the browser log party, and posts a breakdown of which browsers their readers are using compared to logs from three years ago. In that time, IE's total share of their page-views has dropped from nearly 80% to 38%, while Mozilla based browsers now account for more than 23% of total viewership. The site admits they don't likely reflect the general populace, but confirm findings circulated last week: Mozilla is coming on strong.
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Daemon
Premium Member
join:2003-06-29
Washington, DC

Daemon

Premium Member

i'd like to see yahoo, espn, and microsoft

So far, all of the stats I've seen have been /., ars technica, and other geek oriented, OSS supportive sites.

A site like neowin, known for windows fan boys would be interesting, as would a large general interest site like yahoo or espn.

Mike
Mod
join:2000-09-17
Pittsburgh, PA

Mike

Mod

Re: i'd like to see yahoo, espn, and microsoft

You have to start somewhere.....
Daemon
Premium Member
join:2003-06-29
Washington, DC

Daemon

Premium Member

Re: i'd like to see yahoo, espn, and microsoft

said by Mike:
You have to start somewhere.....

I get your point, but still. Inaccurate sampling doesn't prove anything anyway, so we might as well ignore the 'mozilla surge'

sporkme
drop the crantini and move it, sister
MVM
join:2000-07-01
Morristown, NJ

1 recommendation

sporkme to Daemon

MVM

to Daemon
said by Daemon:
So far, all of the stats I've seen have been /., ars technica, and other geek oriented, OSS supportive sites.
Where's BBR's browser breakdown?

state
stress magnet
Mod
join:2002-02-08
Purgatory

state

Mod

Re: i'd like to see yahoo, espn, and microsoft

Wouldn't mind seeing that myself.

Mike
Mod
join:2000-09-17
Pittsburgh, PA

Mike to sporkme

Mod

to sporkme
fine... give it a day.
supernova_00
join:2003-04-02
Havre De Grace, MD

supernova_00 to Daemon

Member

to Daemon
hmmm The Definitive "BEST BROWSER" thread on neowin.net

Firefox is the most popular over there also and its a "windows" fanboy site

fire100
Premium Member
join:2001-11-21
Twin Lake, MI

fire100

Premium Member

More Linux Users?

I think this might be tied to more of the techy people moving over to Linux, which in Linux you generally use a Mozilla based browser.

justin
..needs sleep
Mod
join:1999-05-28
2031

justin

Mod

Re: More Linux Users?

no i don't think linux desktop share has improved by more than a percentage point in that time.

antwanp
Lovably Pompous
Premium Member
join:2002-05-14
Cedar Hill, TX

antwanp

Premium Member

Browser Trend

And so the trend continues. This is sure to piss the people who want Firefox to reamain small off! I don't know why though, it is a better browser. IE 6 on SP2 comes very close though.

-Antwan L.

nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium Member
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA

nixen

Premium Member

Re: Browser Trend

said by antwanp:
IE 6 on SP2 comes very close though.

Not if you're a Web Designer, it doesn't. IE's about 5 years behind on standards compliance.

-tom

BeesTea
Internet Janitor
Premium Member
join:2003-03-08
00000

BeesTea

Premium Member

Re: Browser Trend

said by nixen:

Not if you're a Web Designer, it doesn't. IE's about 5 years behind on standards compliance.

-tom

Sad but true, here's a whole page of things that IE does terribly.

»www.phoenity.com/newtedge/

-BeesT

TheMadSwede
Premium Member
join:2001-01-30
Holland, MI

TheMadSwede

Premium Member

Great

Just what web developers need. More browser fragmentation.

I wish these companies would just stick to standards, regardless of the branding of the browser.

bah.

nil

join:2000-11-27

nil

Re: Great

er.. web developers worth a damn code to a standard which every browser ought to interpret.

TheMadSwede
Premium Member
join:2001-01-30
Holland, MI

1 recommendation

TheMadSwede

Premium Member

Re: Great

said by nil:
er.. web developers worth a damn code to a standard which every browser ought to interpret.

er...nice er...but er...why er...do er...browsers er...not all er...follow er...standards.

er.

Note: You said "ought to interpret"

nil

join:2000-11-27

nil

Re: Great

said by TheMadSwede:

er...nice er...but er...why er...do er...browsers er...not all er...follow er...standards.

er.

That's cute.

Anyway back on topic, I think you'll be hard pressed to find a browser that offends more than IE when it comes to following standards.

TheMadSwede
Premium Member
join:2001-01-30
Holland, MI

TheMadSwede

Premium Member

Re: Great

said by nil:
said by TheMadSwede:

er...nice er...but er...why er...do er...browsers er...not all er...follow er...standards.

er.

That's cute.

Anyway back on topic, I think you'll be hard pressed to find a browser that offends more than IE when it comes to following standards.

Thanks.

If you think I'm claiming that IE is compliant, I'm not. But I am saying that browser compliance doesn't mean a lick to users; they want their browser to work. The more browsers the users use, the more browsers we need to develop for -- that is, until all browsers only comply with uniform standards.

Since all browsers don't comply with uniform standards, it's a pain in the rear.

Anyhow, I must not have done a good job of 'splaining myself, but my complaint is against browsers that don't comply, all the while recognizing that the #1 browser that people use does not comply, but still must be developed for because it's the #1 browser that people use.

Whether or not IE is compliant is irrelevant. People use it, you have to consider it.

KoolMoe
Aw Man
Premium Member
join:2001-02-14
Annapolis, MD

KoolMoe

Premium Member

Re: Great

Or...
maybe if all designers made all their pages standards compliant so almost every site on the net wouldn't render correctly in IE - perhaps MS would finally be forced to get their act together and abide by the standards?
Sure, lots of folks would be mad for a few weeks, but I suspect most would finally switch to a complaint browser once enough sites replied to their rants with 'use a complaint browser'.
Boy, that would scare MS poopless...
KM

Combat Chuck
Too Many Cannibals
Premium Member
join:2001-11-29
Verona, PA

Combat Chuck

Premium Member

Re: Great

said by KoolMoe:
Or...
maybe if all designers made all their pages standards compliant so almost every site on the net wouldn't render correctly in IE - perhaps MS would finally be forced to get their act together and abide by the standards?
Here's the deal:
-from my experience IE will render pertty much everything, compliant or non-compliant
-"compliant" browsers( by which I mean non-ie because many of the "compliant" browsers aren't actually fully compliant) render varing levels of non-compliant code.

I've been asking for about a year now, why is a browser that vomits when digesting non-compliant code better than one that handles it seamlessly? I'll answer for you it's not. And I guarantee that the things that IE does not comply to would be added fairly quickly if webmasters started using them.

IE does not write non-compliant html; webmasters do. Lets place the blame where it is due.

justin
..needs sleep
Mod
join:1999-05-28
2031
Billion BiPAC 7800N
Apple AirPort Extreme (2011)

justin

Mod

Re: Great

IE has a number of outright html rendering bugs - where it does the wrong thing with the right html. the workarounds have been there for so long that people forget they are workarounds and assume that is just the way it should be.

as for browsers that try to do the right thing with bad html, yes, sure, but I'd prefer the browser made it clear that it was guessing. That isn't "vomit", that is promoting standards compliance. IE places equal emphasis on bad code as good code - to IE, there are just two (or more) ways to do the same thing.

html has to be unusually broken now to cause opera or firefox to not display anything useful vs IE displaying a good page. The list of sites that are unusable without IE are down to a vanishingly small percentage.

TechyDad
Premium Member
join:2001-07-13
USA

TechyDad to Combat Chuck

Premium Member

to Combat Chuck
said by Combat Chuck:
Here's the deal:
-from my experience IE will render pertty much everything, compliant or non-compliant
-"compliant" browsers( by which I mean non-ie because many of the "compliant" browsers aren't actually fully compliant) render varing levels of non-compliant code.

The problem is that IE doesn't support a lot of code that is standard. For example, according to standards, any element can utilize the hover pseudo-class. This can allow you to create roll over effects without the use of any JavaScript. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer only supports :hover on links. This means that developers have to resort to JavaScript to support IE.

TheMadSwede
Premium Member
join:2001-01-30
Holland, MI

TheMadSwede to KoolMoe

Premium Member

to KoolMoe
said by KoolMoe:
Or...
maybe if all designers made all their pages standards compliant so almost every site on the net wouldn't render correctly in IE - perhaps MS would finally be forced to get their act together and abide by the standards?
Are you serious? Would your business be willing to have a (at best) weird or (at worst) non-functional site for a few weeks just to make a point?

I think things like mortgages and food are a bit more important than sticking it to Microsoft.

TechyDad
Premium Member
join:2001-07-13
USA

TechyDad to KoolMoe

Premium Member

to KoolMoe
said by KoolMoe:
Or...
maybe if all designers made all their pages standards compliant so almost every site on the net wouldn't render correctly in IE - perhaps MS would finally be forced to get their act together and abide by the standards?

Having a standards compliant site and having it work in IE aren't mutually exclusive. I'm working on a redesign right now of my company's site and I'm making it fully XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS compliant. There are a few quirks that have to be addressed here and there to accommodate IE, and I need to use JavaScript where I wouldn't need to with FireFox, but that doesn't mean that my site won't be compliant.
TechyDad

TechyDad to nil

Premium Member

to nil
said by nil:

Anyway back on topic, I think you'll be hard pressed to find a browser that offends more than IE when it comes to following standards.

Netscape 4.

Or did you mean recently released browsers? 'Course, if you did, that would eliminate IE also.
TechyDad

TechyDad to TheMadSwede

Premium Member

to TheMadSwede
As a web developer, I don't mind if FireFox (and the other Mozilla variants) surge in popularity. It might mean more pressure on Microsoft to increase how well IE supports standards like CSS2. It's not like there's a sudden resurgence of Netscape 4. *shudder*
ariez
join:2004-01-09
00000

ariez

Member

Re: Great

said by TechyDad:
It's not like there's a sudden resurgence of Netscape 4. *shudder*

what was wrong with netscape 4?

sporkme
drop the crantini and move it, sister
MVM
join:2000-07-01
Morristown, NJ

sporkme

MVM

Re: Great

said by ariez:
what was wrong with netscape 4?

Really, really crappy CSS support. As in, feed it something that is to spec and the browser crashes.
ariez
join:2004-01-09
00000

ariez

Member

Re: Great

didn't know that. used 4.79 for years (as primary browser) and still do at times but as a secondary

nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium Member
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA

nixen to TheMadSwede

Premium Member

to TheMadSwede
said by TheMadSwede:
Just what web developers need. More browser fragmentation.

I wish these companies would just stick to standards, regardless of the branding of the browser.

bah.

You know, that might actually be a valid point....

If it weren't for the fact that browsers like Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc. strive to be standards compliant. That is to say, so long as you code to established standards, your pages will render the same in any given browser.

IE, on the other hand, simply DOESN'T, or at least, doesn't conform to updated standards. And, the things that it doesn't support, tend to make developing basic content more time consuming (read expensive) and more restricted to just that browser. If anything, IE is the source of fragmentation at this point (shocking, eh?).

-tom

TheMadSwede
Premium Member
join:2001-01-30
Holland, MI

TheMadSwede

Premium Member

Re: Great

I guess my point is that I'd LOVE to develop on pure standards like CSS2, etc. etc.; however, if even 50% of the browsers aren't compliant, then my work magically doubles.

There's no point in writing to standards that browsers ignore.

justin
..needs sleep
Mod
join:1999-05-28
2031
Billion BiPAC 7800N
Apple AirPort Extreme (2011)

justin

Mod

Re: Great

said by TheMadSwede:

There's no point in writing to standards that browsers ignore.

The biggest offender has been IE. They should set the example, not show others how to dodge standards.

Anyway the point is practically moot. IE has hardly changed a jot in 5 years! having achieved what it thought was a stranglehold, and bundled the browser into the OS, microsoft simply stopped advancing its features. So as the world becoming insecure due to extreme homo-geniality, we also got hardly any improvements, because microsoft had other fish to fry with its free cash.

TheMadSwede
Premium Member
join:2001-01-30
Holland, MI

TheMadSwede

Premium Member

Re: Great

said by justin:

Anyway the point is practically moot.

I thought one of the points of the article was that perhaps it's becoming un-moot. Which is why I'm whining like a big baby about this.

justin
..needs sleep
Mod
join:1999-05-28
2031
Billion BiPAC 7800N
Apple AirPort Extreme (2011)

justin

Mod

Re: Great

if the point of the article is that IE is losing its market share, and your point is that standards non-compliant browsers are a PITA, then you should be happy because one of the biggest contributers to standards-ignorance is sliding down the market share scale.

nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium Member
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA

nixen to TheMadSwede

Premium Member

to TheMadSwede
said by TheMadSwede:
I guess my point is that I'd LOVE to develop on pure standards like CSS2, etc. etc.; however, if even 50% of the browsers aren't compliant, then my work magically doubles.
Currently, about 91% of the browsers aren't compliant.

-tom

TechyDad
Premium Member
join:2001-07-13
USA

TechyDad to nixen

Premium Member

to nixen
said by nixen:

IE, on the other hand, simply DOESN'T, or at least, doesn't conform to updated standards.
I think that's the best point. IE 6 hasn't been updated in too long. When IE 6 was first released, it was the most standards compliant browser around. The major alternative was Netscape 4 which supported virtually no CSS.

IE 6 rightfully gained market share while Netscape first tried to develop a new version, then scrapped it to start over, then got buried in coding for the next few years. For all intents and purposes, Netscape let their browser languish while Microsoft took off. (Yes, there's also the issue of bundling, but IE5 and IE6 were vastly superior to Netscape's offering at the time.)

Of course, once they gained dominance, Microsoft made the exact same mistake that Netscape made: They all but stopped improving IE. So while the standards shifted, IE didn't keep up and is now out of date. Of course, it's still more standards compliant than Netscape 4.

nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium Member
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA

nixen

Premium Member

Re: Great

said by TechyDad:
Of course, once they gained dominance, Microsoft made the exact same mistake that Netscape made: They all but stopped improving IE. So while the standards shifted, IE didn't keep up and is now out of date. Of course, it's still more standards compliant than Netscape 4.
Yeah, but at least NS4 had roaming profile support. That's been an open RFE since like 2000. It's never gotten solved since noone could agree how to reimplement it into the new Mozilla code.

-tom

TechyDad
Premium Member
join:2001-07-13
USA

TechyDad

Premium Member

Another technical community

Technical communities will be more likely to have Mozilla/FireFox users than the general community. Going by TheCounter.com's stats ( »www.thecounter.com/stats ··· wser.php ), IE 5.x+ holds 91% of the market and Mozilla variants hold about 4%.

•••••

palbri
Premium Member
join:2000-10-22
Suffield, CT

palbri

Premium Member

Marketing Hype for a small minority

More marketing hype for a small minority of users.

Millions and millions of people won't notice or care to know.

While many of the non-tech people I had shown FireFox to, all said that it was too much work to install themes, extensions and plug-ins.

•••••••••••••••••••••••

User0101
Premium Member
join:2002-12-12
S-ZZ9-PZA

User0101

Premium Member

No Title Here...

I'm actually a convert from Mozilla/Firefox back to IE after the SP2 Updates. The new integrated Popup Blocker works seamlessly for me. The additional security updates help as well.

Overall, is it perfect... no, but it suits my needs perfectly with other protection I'm running. Run what is suitable for you, try out other platforms if they interest you, determine what is best for you. Don't jump on the bashing bandwagon without actually having some background yourself.

/Trying to catch the "next" browser flamewar before it begins in 3... 2... 1...
inTulsa
Premium Member
join:2002-02-24

1 edit

inTulsa

Premium Member

Questionable

Nevermind, same info was posted above by TechyDad See Profile.

Dennis
Mod
join:2001-01-26
Algonquin, IL

Dennis

Mod

my site's stats

        Hits     Percent     Agent

629,175 42.06% MS Internet Explorer v6
366,313 24.49% Other Agent
201,667 13.48% Spider/Robot
162,889 10.89% MS Internet Explorer v5
40,047 2.68% Netscape Navigator v6
27,156 1.82% Netscape Navigator v5
11,557 0.77% Download Manager

I wonder if "other agent" is mozilla?

Ivybridge_I7
Cyber-Crime Researcher OpSec
Premium Member
join:2004-06-09
Daytona Beach, FL

Ivybridge_I7

Premium Member

IE popularity plunge

Over ninety five of users who visit my website (which is off line) are using either Internet Explorer five or six.

It makes you wonder if the claims of this news article are a little far fetched. I realize that my site is very small in comparison to the billions of websites on the internet but it still makes you wonder if Firefox will take down Internet Explorer in the months to come.

••••

Googolplex
@comcast.net

Googolplex

Anon

A touch of saninity.

Before we get the inevitable flood of "I hate Firefox" and "I hate IE" posts, I'd like to point out that variety is good for EVERYONE. Remember, that no matter how much you like a particular browser, if everyone used it, we'd be back in the same situation again, where a single security hole in one browser is a massive problem.

Though admitedly if that one browser is open source, we'd at least have made *some* progress, as it wouldn't be controlled by any single mega-corporation.

•••••••••

pipdipchip
8 Megabits A Second
Premium Member
join:2003-12-04
Hanover, MN

pipdipchip

Premium Member

Hmm....

I'm the webmaster of serveral web sites varying in subject matter. My geek site, WRT54G.com is almost 50/50 Mozilla/ IE. My two teenage fan sites (I'm 16) are only about 15% Mozilla. Really not bad if you think about it. I want Mozilla to become a major browser although I'm a minor Microsoft fan boy.

*using Firefox*

BoomerSooner
Premium Member
join:2004-02-11

BoomerSooner

Premium Member

How do you tell?

How do you tell which browser was used? Above are the stats for my personal site for the month of September up until midnight last night (the 27th). How can I tell which ones are FireFox/Opera/etc vs IE?

••••
rpsmith
join:2004-04-19
Huntington Beach, CA

rpsmith

Member

Color me unsurprised...

Color me unsurprised. ArsTechnica...of course it's gonna be FF/Moz. That's an extremely specialized crowd.

Still, I'm glad to see FF taking off, with reports in major mags etc. Would suck if everything else was obscure and we were forced to use IE because of website support.

dadkins
Can you do Blu?
MVM
join:2003-09-26
Hercules, CA

1 edit

dadkins

MVM

Glad that I don't follow trends/fads

I prefer Opera over ANY Mozilla product, but I have an IE based browser as my default.

Before anyone chimes in about the "exploits" are still inherent because "it's just a shell", I have never been compromised/exploited/hijacked. I use ActiveX daily, almost constantly, and no problems there either. Hello! HouseCall? Panda Scan? Windows Update? etc.

Funny percentages in this article... From 80% to 38% IE slump and a rise to 23% by Mozilla based browsers. Where is that other 19%? Who is using up the other 39% that IE and Mozilla aren't using?

Have a good evening people!

Neil6
Stop All The Downloadin
join:2003-08-20
New York, NY

1 recommendation

Neil6

Member

Re: Glad that I don't follow trends/fads

I was wondering about that myself.

JMan0948
Where's The Background Music?
Premium Member
join:2003-03-25
Gilberts, IL

JMan0948

Premium Member

AND STILL!!

And still IE is ahead.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

twizlar
I dont think so.
Premium Member
join:2003-12-24
Brantford, ON

1 recommendation

twizlar

Premium Member

Stats

Period 09/2/04 - 10/2/04

Browsers Hits Percent
MS Internet Explorer 33248 91.4 %
Mozilla No 1673 4.6 %
Netscape 768 2.1 %
Safari 366 1 %
Unknown ? 190 0.5 %
Konqueror 48 0.1 %
Opera 24 0 %
Links 12 0 %
firebird 11 0 %
Galeon 9 0 %

from my site

Trakker8
Danger
Premium Member
join:2003-01-12
ß

1 recommendation

Trakker8

Premium Member

Well maybe they need to look at "normal sites"

Yeah geek world sites are going be non IE....

Browsers Percent
MS IE 79 %
Mozilla 13.3 %
Netscape 5.2 %
Safari 0.8 %
Unknown 0.8 %
Opera 0.4 %
Konqueror 0.1 %
Firebird 0 %
WebTV browser 0 %
I-Mode phone 0 %
Others 0 %

Bobb5
Premium Member
join:2001-02-16
Kent, WA

1 edit

Bobb5

Premium Member

Pretty funny stats there, hilarious even!

Want some Real numbers? Only ones you'll be likely to see!
Can you say global usage share
-
WebSideStory Inc.'s real focus is its on-demand Web analytics services for business customers, said Erik Bratt, the company's corporate communications director. But the data collected from thousands of Web sites and 20 million to 40 million users a day has shown WebSideStory that there is a small decline in Internet Explorer use from 95.73 percent on June 4 to 94.73 percent on July 6.
-
It's not just WebSideStory observing this phenomenon. OneStat.com, a Web analytics firm based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, also reported a downturn in IE usage. The company "confirms this decrease of the global usage share of IE. On January 19, the global usage share of IE was 94.8 percent, and on May 28, the global usage share was 93.9 percent," according to a representative for OneStat.com.

ObdH
Premium Member
join:2003-06-11
Abilene, TX

ObdH

Premium Member

Re: Pretty funny stats there, hilarious even!

said by Bobb5:
Want some Real numbers? Only ones you'll be likely to see!
Can you say global usage share
-
WebSideStory Inc.'s real focus is its on-demand Web analytics services for business customers, said Erik Bratt, the company's corporate communications director. But the data collected from thousands of Web sites and 20 million to 40 million users a day has shown WebSideStory that there is a small decline in Internet Explorer use from 95.73 percent on June 4 to 94.73 percent on July 6.
-
It's not just WebSideStory observing this phenomenon. OneStat.com, a Web analytics firm based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, also reported a downturn in IE usage. The company "confirms this decrease of the global usage share of IE. On January 19, the global usage share of IE was 94.8 percent, and on May 28, the global usage share was 93.9 percent," according to a representative for OneStat.com.

kind like the whole firefox spread thing, they wanted 1mil downloads in 10 days or something and got twice that (of course some cheating may have occured)

so I'm sure a couple million downloads could be the indirect reason for a 1% plunge in IE usage