RSSUsage share for both Windows and IE sink ever so slowly
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published May 8, 2009, 3:28 PM
In Web usage statistics now expanded to include mobile platforms, Windows is slipping against not just Macintosh and Linux, but also against iPhone, iPod Touch, and Java ME. This according to the latest live statistics from Net Applications, which samples global Web traffic from its clients.
Among visitors to all of Web sites tracked by Net Applications, Windows has dropped nearly 3 full percentage points in under a year, falling from 94.8% to 87.9% between June 2008 and April 2009. Apple's Mac OS rose from 7.94% to 9.73% over the same time frame, while Linux clients broke the one percent hurdle for the first time ever, stepping from 0.80% to 1.02%.
Although still tiny in comparison to those of larger OS, mobile operating environments picked up steam in their shares, too, with levels rising from 0.16% to 0.55% for the iPhone, from 0.04% to 0.15% for the iPod Touch, and from 0.0% to 0.7% for Java ME.
In the latest chapter of the perpetual Web browser wars, Microsoft's IE lost 0.7 of a percentage point in one month alone, ending April with a Web usage share of just 66.1%. At the same time, Mozilla's Firefox grew its share 0.4 of a percentage point to finish April with 22.5% and Google's Chrome added 0.2 of a percentage point to close the month at 2.4%.
Despite big initial interest, Google browser doesn't seem to have progressed all that astoundingly since Chrome first entered beta, particularly given Google's current promotion of Chrome on its industry leading search engine site.
In the early days of September, 2008, Chrome's usage hovered between 0.85% and 1.57%. Still, Chrome's increase in usage since then has been more than enough to help dent IE.
Now as then, Chrome landed in fourth place for April of 2009 behind Apple's Safari browser. While remaining in third place, Safari did fall off ever so slightly by 0.02 of a percentage point between March and April of this year, to 8.2%.
The Netscape browser took fifth place for April, with 0.82%, moving up a bit from 0.69% in March, while Opera took sixth in April, at 0.68%, down scantily from 0.70% in March. All other browsers combined accounted for merely a 0.29% share in April.
Meanwhile, even the recent release of IE8 hasn't helped to raise Microsoft's overall browser share. IE8 did gain 2.2 percentage points in April, spurred along by Microsoft's offer of the new browser to IE7 and IE6 users through Automatic Updates.
Yet IE7 lost 2 points that month, and the increasingly ancient IE6 dropped yet another 0.8 of a percentage point.
IE8 is just an application. I use Opera.
I still don't get why Microsoft invests in a browser while I would be happy to pay for a browser. No woner they complain in the EU against the bundled dumping. A deliberate attempt to destroy the browser software market form the times of netscape.
Score: 0
|Said this before, but Microsoft is not putting enough resources and seriousness into the mobile platform(s). It is sneaking up on them and they are sleeping.
Score: 0
|@angrykeyboarder: Yup, but I don't use it much. Though, it's FAR more compliant against Acid3 tests than any other browser currently (including Safari, Chrome, IE6/7/8, Flock...).
As for overall view on this...it's irrelevant. Use whichever YOU like best. It's not a trend, it's simply a fact. I mostly use Firefox...but as a developer, I have to develop applications with the mindset that there ARE still people out there that use IE6/other browsers, and develop appropriately for those as well.
Score: 0
|Got Opera?
Score: 0
|Nope, and only .68% of the population seem to. Granted this survey is inflated, so it's probably more like .53%
Score: 0
|Percentages are great from a marketing stand-point, but useless for much else.
You can make statistics mean anything. Really.
There's a chart floating around the net somewhere showing the drop in the percentages of peg-legged pirates compared the the rise in global temperatures. (Obviously, the lack of pirates is increasing global temps....right?)
Yarr....
Score: 0
|I wouldn't say useless. The fully expanded chart shows persistent declines in Microsoft's web browsing share for 2 years now:
http://marketshare.hitsl...mp;qpsp=100&qpnp=25
5% is significant. stretched out, Microsoft will no longer have the majority in ~17 years.
Score: 0
|It's broken form the get-go.
What is "Windows"? They break out the iPhone and the iTouch (which have a slimmed version of Mac OSX), one would assume "Windows" would likely be broken out as well, thus implying that the WinMo devices out there are simply *not* being counted...or that the iPhone and iTouch should be rolled into the "Mac" category.
Nah, not at all convinced that these numbers are anywhere *near* relevant or realistic.
Score: 0
|With the release of Windows 7, Windows market share will grow and crap os x's market share will go down..LOL
Score: 0
|I see nothing in Windows 7 that would make someone from OSX switch back or to Windows for the first time. (And before you ask, I like 7 more than XP and Vista.) I do see it keeping Windows people. However, the mobile platform is seriously in trouble, with many people jumping ship for MS's 4 main Competitors.
I think Microsoft's development cycles for its server, desktop, and Office platforms are actually working against them now. It is taking too long for them to respond to the net marketplace.
Score: 0
|I hope that the Netscape browser is really Mozilla SeaMonkey. It'd be really nice if IE6 went away completely.
I noticed somewhere else that the Linux people were cheering that this report had them pegged at over 1 % for the first time. It somehow doesn't seem fair that Safari on iPod touch and iPhone have already made it to 0.70 %.
Score: 0
|Windows share was close to 100%. As more competitors enter to the market, it is obvious that Windows share can only decrease.
Score: 0
|Alright. This is really clever! Users start using a new category of Internet devices and it eats into the percentage of existing devices.
Ohhh! My! God!!!
An fake example for the layman: 2008: 2000 Windows users = 100%. 2009: 3600 Windows users and 400 iTouch users = 90% Win (yet almost double the number).
Lesson: Don't get your stats from sources subsisting on product demo parties.
Score: 0
|Keep in mind these are percentages. This is not about total number of users. It's about breaking up how what devices are being used to surf the web. Of course you have to take into account that many users use multiple browsers/devices as well. Take of it what you will but I see 2 points made here:
1st - mobile users are growing, as more and more buy an iPhone or what have you. Althouigh 0.77% is not a large group, in the grand scheme of things, with the hundreds upon thousands of users out there using one, thats still a good number.
2nd - Yes there are more users and thats the point. But they are obviously not all clamoring under 1 device/browser. like i said earlier some no doubt use multiple. Some users probably switch between IE and Firefox and no doubt users who have an iPhone also have a computer so their web surfing is split between them.
Side Note: I am also surprised ANYONE still uses Netscape.
Score: 1
|Netscape? People are still using that? Even though
it was completely discontinued over a year ago,
and since then, is no longer supported for
security updates and bugfixes!
Score: 0
|I had the same thought at first, but a lot of peiople are totally cluelsss when it comes to web browsers and not that many years ago a lot of ISPs bundled Netscape with their Internet software.
Heck I know someone who is still using IE for Macintosh OS 9 both of which are ancient..
Score: 0
|