Latest Browser Stats

Lemur · 01 Nov 2010

Thanks to blog analytics, I’ve been able to track trends in browser usage among my readers over time, both here and at my personal site. I was especially eager to see the stats for the month of October. That’s the first full month that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 beta has been available to the general public. I saw plenty of enthusiasm when Microsoft unveiled the beta in mid-September, but has that enthusiasm been able to sustain itself? Can Microsoft stop the steady erosion in usage of Internet Explorer? And what does the future hold for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari?

Latest browser stats: Chrome, IE9 up, Firefox suffers enthusiasm gap | ZDNet

z3r010 · 01 Nov 2010

And just for comparison here are our browser stats for the last month.

Lemur · 01 Nov 2010

Very interesting! What web log analyzer do you use (out of curiosity)?

I need a better analyzer...

z3r010 · 01 Nov 2010

Google analytics.

wilywombat · 02 Nov 2010

I think maybe the folks can't be bothered chasing beta release after beta release so this is affecting the FF4 numbers. It's likely the figures are a big blip during the beta testing and we will have to wait till mid next year till things have settled down and the final releases are out. Anyone I know that has tried the FF betas has found it faster than FF3.xx so there is no big reason why they should drift to chrome or ie9 come release date.

Colonel Travis · 02 Nov 2010

Wily, this is from the article:

Firefox users are abandoning it in droves. Overall, Firefox usage has dropped precipitously in the past two months. Back in 2007, it looked like a sure thing that Firefox usage would pass that of Internet Explorer within a matter of months. That didn’t happen. Firefox usage crossed 40% briefly in August 2008, but it has been under that level ever since. The share of visitors to this site who used Firefox dropped in the past two months to roughly 33%, which is a return to levels I last saw in 2005 and 2006. It’s a trend I first spotted back in March, and it hasn’t slowed. The alarming statistic for anyone in Mozilla management is the complete lack of enthusiasm for Firefox 4. Only 1.06% of visitors to this site are using the Firefox 4 beta.

Count me among the droves. I'll load FF4 when it's done, but that browser took a big hit when Chrome came out.

OneSerious · 02 Nov 2010

I like me some Chrome. Used to use FF but jumped to Chrome on release. If IE9 continues to improve I will probably jump over to it on it's final.

jsquareg · 02 Nov 2010

The only fault I find with Chrome is the lack of a 'Print Preview' function. It still is not in 8.0.552.11.

Skulblaka · 02 Nov 2010

I've noticed that IE9 starts and is faster than FF4, at least for me.

SevenNerd · 02 Nov 2010

Chrome WILL sometime in the future take over both firefox and IE if you ask me.
It's the fastest growing browser to date and the support community is HUGE. IE9 will be good on release but chrome will always have the advantage for fast new release builds.