We’re almost halfway through the year, and it looks as though Internet Explorer is once again continuing its steady decline in usage. April’s stats were interesting because Internet Explorer appeared to have a nice boost in market share, but it was then discovered that there was a big IE marketing campaign going on that caused the stats to be skewed.
All of the mainstream browsers other than Internet Explorer saw a nice little bump in market share for May 2008. In fact, Firefox, Safari, and Opera all hit record highs according to the statistical history available at Net Applications. Those three browsers combined now control over a quarter of the browser market.
And then there is the whole “Safari on Windows” saga that continues. Safari for Windows only saw a 0.04% increase in market share over the previous month despite Apple’s valiant effort to push the browser on any user with iTunes or QuickTime installed on their PC. That brings the total market share for Safari on Windows up to 0.27%, which isn’t too shabby considering how new it is.
Alright, here’s the rundown on the top 10 browsers in terms of market share for May 2008, along with how much they changed over April:
| April 2008 | May 2008 | Change | |
| Internet Explorer | 74.83% | 73.75% | -1.08% |
| Firefox | 17.76% | 18.41% | +0.65% |
| Safari | 5.81% | 6.25% | +0.44% |
| Opera | 0.69% | 0.71% | +0.02% |
| Netscape | 0.56% | 0.62% | +0.06% |
| Mozilla | 0.16% | 0.08% | -0.08% |
| Opera Mini | 0.05% | 0.05% | 0.00% |
| Playstation | 0.04% | 0.03% | -0.01% |
| Pocket IE | 0.03% | 0.02% | -0.01% |
| Konqueror | 0.03% | 0.02% | -0.01% |
Congrats to Firefox for being the biggest mover of the month! Can’t wait to see what the next few months are like as Mozilla tries to attract new users with Firefox 3.
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Tags: Firefox, Freeware, Software, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Statistics
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Umm, I don’t think you mean “valiant” regarding Apple’s Safari-on-Windows push. It means “courageous” and/or “excellent”.
I’d have called it “aggressive”.
http://dictionary.reference.co.....?q=valiant
Actually that is what I meant. The dictionary definition that I pulled up said that it means “possessing or showing courage or determination“. They were certainly determined.
Ryan I really love that pie percentage graphic. Can you share with us what application did you use? Thanks!
Why in the world is Netscape still increasing?!? That thing expired back in March and provides no new security updates!
Firefox all the way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What’s even more interesting is that the pre-releases of Firefox 3 already have more marketshare than Opera. I think Firefox will hit 20% marketshare the next month or the month after.
See this site for more details: http://blog.mozilla.com/metric.....firefox-3/
Hi, where’s the methodology for your study? (How might we learn what your numbers might possibly mean?)
tx, jd/adobe
I think Opera is way underused. It’s a great browser IMO.
Ah, the Mozilla oddity from last time was corrected. I’m sure the Netscape oddity will be corrected again too then. Seems their data is not fully reliable after the dot.
There is definitely logic behind Firefox pre-releases having more market share than Opera. i like the way Firefox blends into my Ubuntu Scheme. And it comes pre-installed with most linux distros. That would account atleast a few percent of the Firefox share. Plus there has bee much more hype over Firefox 3 than the endless stream of Opera 9.50 betas.
Yes Ryan what app did you use to create that almost eatable pie chart??
The stats are pulled from this site (linked above): http://marketshare.hitslink.co.....px?qprid=0
You can check out their methodology if you like.
@Ryan: Sorry to drag this out, but since you argue, this is a case where your dictionary doesn’t cut it. I guess that’s what you get for relying on Wiktionary (which at the least should say “showing courage AND determination”). Check out other definitions on the web. The problem is that “valiant” always carries the connotation that the action is commendable, and people only use it concerning actions they admire.
Your writing is generally pretty strong, but I often wish you had an editor, because I see odd errors in almost every article. The most common things I see are misuse of compound words (”setup” is a noun only, the verb is “set up”) and “misheard” idioms (it’s “this day and age”, not “this day in age”). As a bit of a word geek, it always irks me and I want to correct you, but I refrain because I know it’s obnoxious. I couldn’t resist commenting this time because the use of the term “valiant” implies that you admire Apple’s tactic, and I’m pretty sure you don’t. Perhaps I should have been a little less snarky so that you would be more receptive.
I actually used iWork’s Numbers application, which is Apple’s weak alternative to Excel. The only thing I really like about it is how nice the charts and graphs look.
That’s kind of what I was wondering as well, but it’s Netscape 6 & 7 that own a majority of that market share. So it’s not even the latest version that’s the most popular of the Netscape browsers. Weird.
Not this month though. It’s close, but Opera 9.x is still beating out Firefox 3.
Eatable huh? As I mentioned above I used iWork’s Numbers application which is for Mac’s only.
I guess it makes sense to me though, and I asked a few other people as well and they said it fits. I was looking for a way to say that it was a nice try for Apple, but they fell short in the end. Much like you would say that a chess player gave a valiant effort, but couldn’t win the match.
I realize that my writing is far from perfect, and I’ve honestly hated writing (except for technology-related stuff) for as long as I can remember. I’m simply a computer engineer that has taken every chance to bypass any English courses.
I’m sure it’s a temporary glitch as they have those more often (mostly in the numbers after the dot). I really doubt Netscape usage has increased.
re: methodology
Yes, I had already checked out the top-level chart, but had not seen their methodology linked.
That’s why, when the chart was popularized here, I asked to see if others knew just exactly what they were measuring here. No big thing, just seeking the real news behind the headline.
jd/adobe