[plug] browser stats anyone?

Jonathan Young jonathan at pcphix.com
Fri Dec 16 09:57:41 WST 2005


Apart from surveying each and every user, it is going to be a very 
difficult statistic to produce accurately as there are so many 
trade-offs and inconsistencies in the way the stats are gathered.  I 
have two XP systems.  One is banned from using IE because I refuse to 
clean it for spyware any more and so it is FireFox 100%.  The other is 
my laptop where I use FF for everything, unless some stupid site won't 
load and I REALLY need to get on it.  Then I still have IE around 
(bleh).  So at my place, is that a vote for IE and two for FF?  I don't 
think so.

Browser emulation will hide the real browser as mentioned.  What about 
other Windows apps that use parts of IE to display web content?  You 
can't rely on downloads because no-one 'downloads' IE (on a Windows box 
at least) and multiple downloads of FF by the one user (to upgrade or 
distribute it) would also skew the stats.  At best, you might be able to 
say that of 100% of traffic on xyz server, a certain percentage is 
definitely going to FF (for an example).

On three out of four sites that I maintain, the amount of traffic 
handled exclusively by FF is more than 50%.  All of these sites are 
techie orientated.  I guess it *might* be safe to say that more than 50% 
of well-informed people are using FF or Mozilla, but already I am 
*interpreting* my own stats.  At a guess, I would say 30% of my clients 
(including family and friends) i.e. the computers that I have direct 
input in, run FireFox instead of IE.

I would definitely disagree with the stat of 95% IE, just based on what 
I see.  I think of it like this:  If I walk up to 100 computers at 
random (across Perth) and check what browser is SET TO DEFAULT, I fully 
expect there to be more than 5 PCs using something other than IE.  
Expand this on a global scale and I still think 95% is unbelievable.

- Jonathan

Denis Brown wrote:

> Many thanks for all the useful replies on this thread.   In answer to 
> Bret's assumption that the manager provided a source, well... no.   I 
> have since seen references to his 95% figure but it is now well out of 
> date according to various sources.
>
> As respondents including Bret have said, the figures are distorted by 
> such things as browser emulation and caching as well as country 
> trends.   Japan apparently has the highest declared usage of IE while 
> Germans seem to prefer other products, notably FireFox.   I'm looking 
> just now at thecounter.com which shows IE6 at 84% in November this 
> year, FF at 8%
>
> Thanks for all the good feedback!
> Denis


-- 
Jonathan Young
Director of PC-PHIX
jonathan at pcphix.com

Phone: 0410 455 674
Web: http://www.pcphix.com/

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