Uptake on IE8 slows to a crawl

If the latest figures from global network analytics firm NetApplications can be trusted as reliable samples -- and they certainly have in the past -- the general Web users' interest in Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 may have tapered off appreciably this morning. Over the weekend, the level of Web traffic monitored by NetApplications attributable specifically to the new version of the browser, peaked at 2.52% by 4:00 pm EDT yesterday.

For what is currently a voluntary upgrade, that two-and-a-half percent could certainly be a high number. That's quite a bit higher than Google Chrome, which although flirting with the 2% mark early in its release history, hovers today at closer to the 1% mark. By comparison, as much as 22% of last weekend's traffic was attributable to Mozilla Firefox 3.0 versions.

But as users left home to return to work this Monday, IE8 usage took a dive below the 2.0% mark by mid-morning as users in their offices returned to IE7-based computers. Some sources this morning claimed the dropoff was due to users uninstalling IE8, but there's no hard evidence of this trend just yet. Microsoft has not yet opted to present IE8 to Windows Vista or XP users though its Microsoft Update service, even as an "optional update." Presently, Microsoft is under scrutiny from European legislators over its continued practice of bundling its Web browser with Windows.