Browser Usage - 1 year on.

[stytagm]

Amazingly it's been about a year since I posted this thread about Firefox 2 and IE7 use. So I thought I'd post another set of results showing how things have changed.

Just to re-iterate the setup. These are the browser statistics seen on two websites over the course of about 5 days. The first sells home wares, and so has a demographic that's high in non-techies. Your Mum or even Grandma might well shop there. The second is from a clothing and "Gear" shop, mainly aimed at teens to thirties. So a much younger demographic.

Lastly, feel free to post these elsewhere, but please copy them, don't hotlink, as I'm only on a little hosting account.

First - Home wares:


Second - Teen Clothing:


The thing that interests (and disapoints) me, is how well IE6 is doing. Having got used to IE7, whilst not perfect, it's still a huge leap in standards compliance when compared to IE6. We were hoping that windows updates would pretty much steamroller IE7 out to the masses and it seems not to have happened.

Firefox 2 on the other hand outstrips Firefox 1.x by about 30x. Although Firefox overall hasn't really increased in the last year, which is a shame.

Discuss...

[charleski]

I agree, it's disgusting that so many people are still using IE 6. This suggests there are a LARGE number of unpatched Windows boxes out there just begging to be botnet zombies. (And any programmers who haven't got their company's custom intraweb apps working on IE7 by now are just lazy buggers.)

Interesting that Safari (and therefore Mac) hits are so low. Web monitoring in the US puts the various Safari versions at around 6%.

[aidanjt]

WGA might have a hand in that too.

[Funkstar]

Before i saw the second graph, i thought IE6 would be a lot lower in it, but i was wrong.

Amazing that someone is still using Netscape 3.01 as well

[aidanjt]

Even more disturbing is people still using IE5.x

[Bluecube]

That's incredible. I would've thought that Firefox would have a bigger share. No wonder there are so many unsecure PCs out there if people insist on using old versions of IE!

[charleski]

WGA might have a hand in that too.

I suppose there might be a load of dumb pirates out there who've yet to find out how easy it is to bypass XP's WGA check. And of course these are exactly the sort of idiots most likely to install a dodgy keygen that contains a trojan. Since MS has now removed the WGA check from IE7 installs, it'll be interesting to see if that changes the figures.

But I really think that most IE6 users are either
a) lazy bums who don't update their system
or
b) suffering under the yoke of lazy sys admins who still haven't rolled out an IE 7 update.

[directhex]

ie7 no longer includes WGA

at this point, the only word i can use for anyone using IE6 as their main browser on a modern machine is "retard" - and if it's not their fault because they're using some site (e.g. work intranet) that forces it, then those responsible go far, far beyond merely "retard"

[Clockwork_Killa]

I honestly cant wait for the day that ie6 becomes totally unused, then I can finally justify not caring whther my designs actually work in a shoddy browser that doesnt support vaild w3 css layouts!
Ok end of rant
Im still somwhat amazed that IE7 has taken up so well, it really wouldnt have surprised me to see IE6 still holding the top slot.

[Lucio]

But I really think that most IE6 users are either
a) lazy bums who don't update their system
or
b) suffering under the yoke of lazy sys admins who still haven't rolled out an IE 7 update.

You're missing the 3rd option, people who don't like the look of IE7 at all and who'd rather not have to change the familiar for the unfamiliar.

[aidanjt]

You're missing the 3rd option, people who don't like the look of IE7 at all and who'd rather not have to change the familiar for the unfamiliar.

And the 4th option, for people who like viewing websites in a broken, buggy, insecure and non-standards compliant way.

[awm]

It would be interesting to see the browser usage on Hexus for comparison [hint hint admins].

[jackvdbuk]

sad to see that opera doesnt have a big chunk of that pie chart what a class browser!

thought they would atleast be near the top of the list

[stytagm]

Interesting that Safari (and therefore Mac) hits are so low. Web monitoring in the US puts the various Safari versions at around 6%.

That's possibly down to the site's in question, these results can only ever be indicative. The oldies visiting the first site are unlikely to be the "hip design types" Apple targets, while the teens who mostly visit the second site probably still live at home and can't afford to shell out for a Mac.

You may well find that something like Flickr or other creative/design focused sites would get a much higher proportion of Safari users.

sad to see that opera doesnt have a big chunk of that pie chart ...thought they would atleast be near the top of the list

Opera would stand higher, but it's score seems to be split across more minor version numbers than the other browsers. Is Opera laid back about checking for new releases and hassling you to upgrade?

[Lee H]

Even more disturbing is people still using IE5.x

Whats even more disturbing is people are still using windows 98. I get asked if things that state windows XP & Vista only support 98/ME.

Come on folks - a 10 year old OS ?

I bet they change their cars more often than their operating systems, yet because they think it's running alright.

[cougarslam]

ie6 is easier to use than ie7 my uni is still on ie6 also.

for web dev its useful to have a pc with ie6 for testing + some sites just don't like other browsers due to being badly coded.

I use firefox personally but have 2 resort 2 ie7 for sites like myspace.