Browser Wars

The  stats for one of our product websites has some interesting data on web browser use.

• Internet Explorer has fallen below 60% for the first time – $58%
• Firefox use has hit 30%
• Safari is 6% and Google’s Chrome is 4%
• Safari is pretty much only used by Mac owners. Safari use on Windows is negligible.

Uptake of new software versions differs markedly between Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Internet Explorer

The following tables show the percentage of users with each version and the release date for that version.

After 8 years the much loathed (by web developers) IE6 is still used by almost 20% of IE users. A look at the IP addresses of these users indicates that about 60% of them are corporate or institutional. They are probably stuck with IE6 through cost of change or the requirements of legacy intranet applications.

The number non-institutional users with either IE6 or the three-year old IE7 is surprising, as you’d expect the updates to have been pushed through by Windows Update. You have to wonder if these PC’s have updates disabled!

96% of Windows users are using either XP (69%) or Vista (27%).

Firefox

In contrast, with Firefox there is a very different pattern. 83% of the Firefox users had updated within the last two months and 94% of Firefox users were using a browser less than a year old.

Perhaps the difference is cultural. Firefox users have made a conscious choice to switch and are probably generally more aware of the need to stay up-to-date.