In the past I’ve blogged a few times about Firefox’s continued rise in market share, and this week it was announced that the trend continues. I immediately compared the new statistics to previous blog posts and came to the conclusion that the information doesn’t always come from the same source, as the figures jump about a bit. The latest information shows that Internet Explorer has fallen to 59.9% while Firefox now boasts 24.5%. So this doesn’t tally with data from StatCounter but does follow the trend reported by NetApplications.
However, that’s a less than 1% rise for Firefox since October 2009, but a 5.8% decrease for Internet Explorer. So where has the market share gone? One would assume it’s gone to Google’s Chrome, but could it have jumped 5%?
From now on I’m just going to look in one place, and that’s here. The figures tell us that since June 2009 Internet Explorer lost 8.37%, while Firefox gained 2.16%, Chrome gained 4.33% and Safari gained 0.93%.
What I find interesting is that both Microsoft and Google have thrown money at advertising their browsers, both free products. A few months ago there were some big Chrome posters in key positions in London – for Google it has to be about mind-share. At the moment, Microsoft are running adverts for Internet Explorer on television – is this to try to stem the market share leak? One of the adverts shows a generous man shopping on-line for gifts for his missus, and extols the benefits of private browsing. That’s something that Internet Explorer’s three big rivals can do too, so if they were trying to differentiate themselves Microsoft wasted a big pile of money on that one.
Just out of curiosity, what’s the current breakdown for your blog?
Good point… I’d say my web site isn’t very representative of the world at large, there’ll be many people visiting who would naturally be looking for an alternative to Microsoft solutions, and probably quite a few Mac users. I’ve had a look and the largest percentage (47.9%) is using an “unknown” browser followed by Internet Explorer (40.7%). Not very helpful.
I think you’ll see the Microsoft share continue to decrease due to the usage of “mini” browsers for Phone and tablet devices which are not using the MS browser. They need browsers that are more efficient, fewer attacks, and more aligned with global standards. The device makers need to know what to expect from a browser via standards.
The statistics on browser usage are likely to vary a lot between sites. The following is the breakdown of visitors to my blog http://brianodonovan.ie since the start of the year. I doubt it is typical of the web overall
1. Firefox 64.86%
2. Internet Explorer 13.97%
3. Chrome 11.69%
4. Safari 5.17%