July 2008 has come to a close, and as always we enjoy taking a look at how the browser and operating system market share changed from the previous month. July was actually a big month for monitoring web browser usage because it’s the first full month that the browsers have had to bake onto the machines of millions and millions of users. Were the new releases a success?
Judging by the stats from Net Applications I would say that they’re not doing quite as well as I expected. In fact the differences from June to July are minimal. What about the operating systems? The OS realm is as slow at changing as it has ever been. Here’s a quick overview of the browser and operating system standings for July 2008:
–Web Browsers–
Firefox was able to gain some ground this month, but it wasn’t at the expense Internet Explorer. It looks like most of the users were making the switch over from Safari, which might mean that dedicated Safari users are finding Firefox 3 to be a more acceptable browser. At this point almost 1/3 of all Firefox users are running Firefox 3, which isn’t bad considering it’s only been out for 6-weeks.
You might have also seen TG Daily’s claim that Firefox has surpassed a 20% market share, and that IE has dipped under 70%. Their stats are from one day only, and don’t represent an entire month’s average. We’ll have to wait until next month before we see whether there’s any substance to those stats.
| June 2008 | July 2008 | Change | |
| Internet Explorer | 73.01% | 73.02% | +0.01% |
| Firefox | 19.03% | 19.22% | +0.19% |
| Safari | 6.31% | 6.14% | -0.17% |
| Opera | 0.73% | 0.69% | -0.04% |
| Netscape | 0.67% | 0.69% | +0.02% |
| Mozilla | 0.09% | 0.08% | -0.01% |
| Opera Mini | 0.05% | 0.05% | 0.00% |
| Playstation | 0.03% | 0.04% | +0.01% |
| Konqueror | 0.03% | 0.02% | -0.01% |
–Operating Systems–
Surprisingly Windows made a slight jump for July, up 0.13% over the previous month. Windows is currently sitting at a 91.02% market share, but despite its dominance it is still on a slow decline. A year ago it sat at 93.28%, and that 2% difference has been slowly but surely transferring over to the Mac and Linux side.
Another interesting note is that the iPhone has hit its all-time high at 0.19% market share, and the iPod (Touch) is at 0.04%. Pretty soon they’ll be more people on the web using an iPhone/iPod than those running Windows ME. 
| June 2008 | July 2008 | Change | |
| Windows XP | 71.20% | 70.64% | -0.56% |
| Windows Vista | 16.14% | 16.93% | +0.79% |
| Mac – Intel | 5.25% | 5.23% | -0.02% |
| Mac OS | 2.69% | 2.52% | -0.17% |
| Windows 2000 | 2.11% | 2.02% | -0.09% |
| Linux | 0.80% | 0.82% | +0.02% |
| Windows NT | 0.69% | 0.71% | +0.02% |
| Windows 98 | 0.43% | 0.41% | -0.02% |
| Windows ME | 0.25% | 0.24% | -0.01% |
| iPhone | 0.16% | 0.19% | +0.03% |
So there’s not much to see here this month, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed that next month’s stats will be a bit more exciting.
Thanks for those interesting stats. Your pie graphics are absolutely awesome. Can you share with us what application you use to generate them?
didn’t you ask that last time Omar?
here.. [cybernetnews.com]
I think Omar has asked two times before this actually. He must forget to come back and check for a response.
At any rate I used the Apple Numbers (part of the iWork) suite to do the graphs.
mmm… The Microsoft Pac-Man loves to eat
Maybe I did forget to see your response. Sorry about that. Thanks a lot for the tip. Unfortunately I don’t have an Apple computer. Let me tell you, those graphics are finger-licking good.
There is one problem with the Net Application figures. For Internet Explorer, they really aren’t measuring Microsoft IE. Net Apps measures only how many browsers are using the Trident display engine. That includes, among others, Maxthon, a really powerful, useful browser that is better in several ways than IE and Firefox.
The pollsters may be figuring, as I have to admit a lot of people do, that Maxthon is only a fancy skin on top of IE. That’s wrong. The code for security, tabs, searches, and dozens of other features that at best are only gleams in the eyes of developers for IE–and Firefox — are unique to Maxthon.
Drop by at [maxthon.com] and give it a spin. You’ll see what I mean.
Ron White
Official Maxthon Advocate
Apple definitely knows how to make things that look good, and that’s one reason why I like their iWork suite. It’s definitely not as powerful as Microsoft Office though.
That’s true, but I’d have to guess that other Trident-based browsers make up no more than a few percent of IE’s market share.
> Maxthon, a really powerful, useful browser that is better
> in several ways than IE and Firefox.
Uhm, Maxthon user who tried Firefox has told me exactly opposite oppinition – he has claimed that FF3 beats Maxthon to the hell.