IE 8 Is Top Browser, Google Chrome Is Rising Fast 319
An anonymous reader points out that the latest Net Applications numbers show that MSIE 8 has become the world's most-used browser, taking over from IE6, which has been hit by the decline in the use of Windows XP. PCMag.com emphasizes another angle on the numbers, which is that Chrome is the fastest-growing browser. Firefox's market share has stalled just below 25%. Chrome is now in third place, ahead of Safari. The Guardian's article reminds: "There's no guarantee that NetApps' numbers are accurate, and they are very unlikely to be correct to two decimal places. However, they do appear to be a good indicator of market trends."
I'm using Chrome (Score:5, Insightful)
I use it at work, and at home on my Mac and PC.
I have used it for months, but I am quickly becoming agitated with its bugs. I have had multiple occasions where the entire browser becomes unresponsive (which was supposed to be extremely uncommon with each tab as a process).
Flash absolutely destroys the browser after a few hours of listening to last.fm, and if I leave the browser on overnight, I regularly return to a browser that I can watch as it refreshes the screen line by line (literally, I could count the lines as it repaints the screen).
With Firefox's latest improvements, I am very eager to see what they can dish out in 3.7, and I am slowly working my way back to using their browser.
I also hate how Google "helps" by hiding a large portion of modestly large URLs when I highlight the link.
Google won me with speed, but, as usual with everything except search and GMail, they are losing me with bugs and a lack of features (Print Preview, the ability to remove typos from my search history (like "sl," which gets very annoying now when I type sl and it googles it instead of selecting Slashdot, and internal settings, like automatically signing into corporate intranets, while on the intranet--Firefox and IE support this).
Looking at the bigger picture... (Score:5, Insightful)
...I could really care less who fights for what place. The bigger impact being made by the browser wars is we finally see more than one damn browser on the list, forcing many websites to adopt to user choice rather than the IE "my way or the highway" web hole we dealt with for many years.
Re:the more prevalent it remains, the bigger the r (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that IE has most of the business market also makes it a much more profitable target.
Re:Can someone please answer this? (Score:2, Insightful)
It was their plan to be hacked.
Re:Can someone please answer this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did I miss something or did Google PR and astroturfing successfully prevented this point from being made in any of the articles or Slashdot comments?
Or the far simpler explanation that no one simply happened to think of it. No conspiracy theory required.
Furthermore, I can think of at least one good reason for Google to still use IE6 internally, and that is testing. Granted, one would hope they were taking precautions to make sure they didn't get attacked because of it, but the fact remains that it was pretty reasonable for them to keep a couple of IE6 machines around for testing their services.
Re:Who are these people? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That O browser... (Score:4, Insightful)
This childish shit is ridiculous.
Why would so-called adults battle each other over web browsers?
The fanboyism involved is utterly lame.
Alright, I can almost understand the 'Internet Explorer versus All The Rest' wars, what with all the shilling and astroturfing so prevalent and common these days.
But why almighty fuck would the fangirlies of one non-IE browser devote so much time and effort to bashing any other non-IE browser?
"Z0MG TEH OPERAS IS TEH GAY AND R33L GEEKS USE TEH FIREFOX Z0MGLOL!!!!1111ELEVENTYONE"
Re:Who are these people? (Score:5, Insightful)
Literally NO ONE that I know uses Internet Explorer.
I believe the majority of that statistic is the result of corporate computer deployments where IE is pretty much the norm, and employees are unable to install their own browsers. That's why IE6 was at the top for so very long, even through the entirety of IE7's lifetime, because corporations hadn't taken the time to install new software like that en masse.
I'm glad to see that IE8 is on top now, though(*). Shows that corporations are perhaps finally realizing how utterly bad IE6 is and they're moving forward.
(*): this is not an endorsement of IE... I honestly can't stand it... just anything is better than IE6.
Re:the more prevalent it remains, the bigger the r (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the more prevalent it remains, the bigger the r (Score:2, Insightful)
They probably could build a good, lean, fast browser if they didn't have to support legacy bullshit.
Re:Who are these people? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, since it loads a visible portion quickly, people believe it is wayy faster than FF.
Since one can see the text and other features of the page faster with Chrome, for all intents and purposes it is faster.
Re:the more prevalent it remains, the bigger the r (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, Chrome OS doesn't let you install or run any programs at all. It might be sufficient, but you never know.
Re:It will be through the roof once Chrome OS is o (Score:3, Insightful)
Netbooks are great, if you need that sort of thing.
Netbooks with expensive hardware requirements(SSDs still aren't cheap) and no non google native code, only running Chrome(so no IE only web sites), are not great.
ChromeOS is pretty much the most insane thing I've ever heard of, the iPad is less locked down, has more functionality, and is probably going to be cheaper, and even that's probably a toy.
Re:This confirms what I said earlier ... (Score:2, Insightful)
apt.exe, right?
Re:It will be through the roof once Chrome OS is o (Score:1, Insightful)
A netbook's main advantage is that it is inexpensive, and runs people's existing stuff, albeit slowly. The problem is that if netbook added stuff which people wanted (faster CPU, RAM, Bluetooth, faster graphics, TPM chip for security, etc.) then the machine will end up having to be priced as an ultraportable.
Re:Can someone please answer this? (Score:3, Insightful)
To add to this point... Like this summary states, up until recently, IE6 was the most common browser... like it or not, you've gotta make sure the *majority* of your visitors get the right look and feel.
That being said... Please for the love of God help everyone you can get off of IE6 and onto (literally) anything else.
Re:the more prevalent it remains, the bigger the r (Score:4, Insightful)
> IE8 sucks.
Performance wise: yes, absolutely. Despite all the claims of better javascript performance etc it feels a lot slower than IE6.
However, the rendering is pretty accurate, and that is all that web designers care for. Because a badly looking website is the designer's fault, while a slow browser is the user's problem.
Re:the more prevalent it remains, the bigger the r (Score:3, Insightful)
And you should also realize that there are many organizations that still are stuck with IE6.
Well we're stuck with Gopher !
IE6 is now 10 years old. It predates Windows XP. The Windows XP which will be retired in July (or at least which ought to cease receiving support).
So granted there also are orgs that are stuck with VT120s but that doesn't mean anyone has to support them.
If some people really want to develop in-house stuff using terminals or IE6, why not, but excuse us while the world moves forward. It just doesn't make sense any more to support those specifically any more (except that a terminal hooked to a machine running links or lynx or somesuch will probably work better than IE6 on a well written site).
skinning the goat (Score:5, Insightful)
So as always with statistics it can be skinned anyway you want it.
For example why are firefox 3 and firefox 3.5 being treated as two different browsers. They are both Firefox version 3
If we were to add those to statistics Firefox 3 would have roughly the same share as internet explorer 8.0 that is 22.30%
Version numbering is affecting the statistics here, MS doesn't use the same philosophy as Firefox when it comes to versioning.
MS never had internet explorer 6.5...but it had internet explorer sp1 and sp2...which are as different from each other as firefox 3 and firefox 3.5. Yet internet explorer 6.0 is displayed as one browser.
Once IE 8 receives a sp or a major update should its statistics be split to ie 8 with sp and ie 8 without sp
How different two versions of the same browser have to be different to justify the splitting of their statistics.
Re:At some level this is may be a good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Worst. Car analogy. Ever.
Re:the more prevalent it remains, the bigger the r (Score:3, Insightful)