IE Market Share Falls To Historic Low

An anonymous reader writes "Predicting that Microsoft will lose market share from month to month isn't especially difficult. Yet it is amazing to see the downfall of what was once a bastion for Microsoft. It appears that Microsoft can't defend IE against Firefox and, as it seems, Google's Chrome. Net Applications now believes that IE has a share of less than 60%, which is about the range that IE had in early 1999, when IE5 was launched. IE is now officially back in the 1990s. Chrome, by the way, is the fastest growing browser, both in absolute numbers and percentages. It is well ahead of Safari and more than tripled its share within 12 months."

good

[thetoadwarrior]

It's insecure and awful. Bye bye!

Why is this surprising?

[King InuYasha]

Most people are not complete morons. If they get burned once with IE, they'll tell their friends to use a different browser. And of course, they themselves will use a different browser. As the number of people recommending alternative browsers increases, more people will switch away from IE voluntarily...

Mine Nipples Explode With Joy!

[eldavojohn]

As a human being I'm normally predisposed to abstain from unconditional hate.

As a web developer who has "done the dance" with former versions of IE late into the night too many times I hate hate hate and welcome this news. Nothing can undo those atrocities. IE6. Never forget!

The great thing about this: MS doesn't know why

[dingen]

Microsoft is desperately updating their browser to meet the same modern standards as the competition. IE9 is supposidly going to be a revolution for them, supporting all sorts of long standing stuff like SVG, CSS3, HTML5 and supporting a fast Javascript engine, which is exactly the direction in which Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera have been developing lately.

Obviously Microsoft is doing this in an attempt to gain some market share again. It's great for web developers, because they can finally start really deploying some of that shiney new tech. But in reality, most people aren't aware of these webstandards at all and aren't switching to Firefox or Chrome because MSIE doesn't support them. They're switching because other browsers are faster, more secure, less obnoxious, more cool and support more plugins and other goodies.

I don't think IE will ever be as big again as they once were, but because MS doesn't get what the root of the problem is, they're helping the web forward in the process of trying to get some users back. Which is actually great for everyone.

What bugs me...

[Ranma-sensei]

...is that most people now either use Firefox or Chrome - which heightens these browsers' endangerment concerning malware specific to them.

It's not as if it really affects me as an Opera user, but having to put up with Firefox at work, I'm not too excited about this, since the company I work at usually takes its time to update (FF 2.0.0.7, here).

Oh well, at least MS's share is dropping...

Re:soooo?

[eldavojohn]

why is this news that people should care about?

*rolls down his turtleneck to reveal the permanent bruise from trying to hang himself after spending an endless night trying to figure out what was causing IE6 to crash but not Firefox*

*rolls up his coworker's sleeve to show the scars of slash marks on his wrist after trying to get alpha transparency working in PNG images inside IE6*

*holds up a memorial plaque of yet another coworker who jumped to his death from the top of the building after trying to code Javascript that would abstract many functionalities so that they would work both in IE6 and Firefox*

Trust me, as a developer who has tried to understand the madness that is IE6, we care and we are not alone [bringdownie6.com]. The damage continues to this day [slashdot.org].

Re:historic?

[CensorshipDonkey]

Yes. You have to look into history to find the last time it was at these levels. 11 years is a very long time ago in the relative timescale of software.

No forced unbundling?

[clone53421]

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/07/24/1927255/Microsoft-Agrees-To-EU-Browser-Ballot-Screen [slashdot.org]
http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/02/19/2135254/Details-Emerge-On-EU-Only-Browser-Choice-Screen-for-Windows [slashdot.org]

Re:And may it keep dropping

[Kjella]

I honestly don't feel that much difference anymore. A year ago it was something like 30% non-IE browsers, now it's 40% non-IE. Both are too big to ignore and many replacements of old IE-only systems from when they had 90% market share probably would have happened anyway. From here to about 80-90% non-IE where you can consider dropping IE support you are supporting the same anyway.

Re:Tired of IE's BS

[PNutts]

I recently forced my sister and her husband on to Opera because they kept getting new spyware every month.

Methinks the problem is not their browser.

Re:The great thing about this: MS doesn't know why

[tibit]

Not too little, but definitely too late. SVG should have been supported since IE7. Same goes for quirk-less CSS2.1 support.

Every month, this is posted

[kaizendojo]

and every month I say the same two things:

• Net Applications numbers only include their customers as a dataset
• Since they do not reveal ANY of their methodology, their entire study is suspect.

Yet I know I will see this posted again next month...so would someone please explain the agenda to me?

Re:good

[coniferous]

I agree that IE is the worst of the trio (Imho of course), It's not the unholy creation of satan that it once was. It's still the only browser the responds to the DPI setting in windows. Its security is closer to the other other browsers now, and you can manage it with group policy... I think its about time we reccomended the right tool for the right job, as opposed to just avoiding it outright.

Re:Tired of IE's BS

[dc29A]

because they kept getting new spyware every month.

They shouldn't run their PCs as administrators. So changing browser didn't really solve anything, the moment Opera is targeted by hackers, you are back to square one. Remove the ability of your family to run Windows as administrators and they can use whatever browser they want and they'll be much safer.

Re:Why is this surprising?

[man_of_mr_e]

I'm not so sure about that. I have to wonder if the explosion of iPhone and Android based phones has not contributed significantly to this. Since IE is not available on those devices, one has to wonder, especially considerging that chrome and safari account for more than 5% of the drop in IE's share. (according to the charts, firfox is less than 5%, and opera stayed the same).

What that means to me is that a significant number of people aren't switching on the desktop. The market is just growing, and those people using phone based browsers are probably still using IE on the desktop.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:historic?

[oodaloop]

It's the first time it's fallen to that range. Last time, it was on the way up.

Re:Mine Nipples Explode With Joy!

[sznupi]

Well, and standards didn't exactly help those browsers which did try to stick to them back then...

Re:Tired of IE's BS

[jedidiah]

If the tool can't be handled safely by novices, yet is rammed down the throats of novices, then it's the tool and not the end user that is at fault.

Re:All this despite no forced unbundling...

[man_of_mr_e]

If that were true, one would expect Firefox's share to have risen significantly, but in reality, it's stayed pretty much the same, in fact it's at the exact same level as in November of last year. Further, the Browser selection screen has only been out there for 3 months and the trend of chrome and safari goes back a lot further than that.

Frankly, I'm more inclined to believe the rise is due to the rise of iPhone and Android based browsers rather than much change on the desktop.

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a complete asshole.

Re:good

[erik.martino]

Yes but it is good to see that for the first time since IE4-6, Microsoft will release a competitive browser. It is interesting what IE9 is doing with hardware acceleration, and hopefully it will inspire other browsers to improve which is good for everyone. If the browsers end up being almost complete operating systems, like the Chrome OS, they needs to be much faster than today.

Re:good

[Vectormatic]

depends, if he tells the people clearly after installing the trigger, i'd say he is well within his rights, especially if he fixes computers for free.

Lots of people expect us nerds to just fix their computers because we are good at it, and it is supposed to be our hobby, fuck that. If i fix a machine i am doing you a favor, and if i give advice on the use of a computer, they should listen (hey, i'm the computer expert right?), if they chose to ignore my advice and in the process destroy my work, am i an asshole for not doing it again and again?

Re:as a web developer, i hate you fucking ad block

[medcalf]

I really don't mind ads on web pages, per se. The ad supported model is reasonable. Yet, I find that there are numerous web pages I won't read because of their ads, and eventually I installed ClickToFlash to get rid of the worst of it. Here's what ticks me off:

• Ads that pop up in the middle of text whenever my mouse moves across the text (not even hovering, just moving across). This interferes with my reading the text, which is why I'm there.
• Short web articles broken into two or three pages to increase the number of ad impressions. This is inconvenient and annoying.
• Ads that play music automatically. Sound is particularly annoying at work, because it disturbs my coworkers. It can also be annoying at home, because it's unexpected.
• Ads that involve motion. It's very distracting, because the human eye is drawn to motion. For the advertiser, of course, that's the point. But I didn't come for the ads, but for the content, and sites that using moving ads don't get much of my return views.
• Movies with sound are the devil's spawn, combining both of the previous points.

If websites cannot find a way to stay in business without the annoying kinds of ads, then they need to find a new business model. This is not my problem, it is theirs. Or yours, as the case may be.

Like Water You Can't Drink

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Microsoft is now producing a 'consumable' that cannot be easily consumed. I believe it was never their original intention, but the market has evolved, and they did not adapt. Internally, they probably feel obligated to support their installed base for compatibility reasons, but I suspect the team senses they are on the Titanic. It is rare, but sometimes you get to watch the inevitable unfold in slow motion before your eyes. It is tragic and spectacular to witness. Wait until MW7 releases with an IE8-compatible browser, it will sadly make their current situation seem bearable by comparison.

Re:Sure, if you go back far enough...

[erroneus]

That's a sad story with the exception of Lotus Notes. I seriously HATE that program. It is what we are using now. It is a royal pain in the buttocks.

Unfortunately, Microsoft is the biggest cause of IT woes for many reasons. Not only are their implementations generally not standards compliant, they aren't even compliant with their own standards. Further, their achievement of "critical mass" has enabled them to abuse the market further by convincing the market that Microsoft "works" and everyone else is "broken." While there have been instances where Microsoft "lost" in this approach, Microsoft had to be enjoined from this practice through the legal system because nothing else will stop them otherwise. Microsoft's critical mass has also turned "IT" into a commodity rather than a specialty. Microsoft has systematically lowered our wages by making every IT solution "one-size-fits-all" in the eyes of decision makers which further enables all the other IT outsourcing issues we have all been suffering for the past decade.

Most people who are against Microsoft dominance have good reasons of their own. I rarely hear about Microsoft's dominance as the cause for the suppressed wages we have all been feeling in IT. But the truth of the matter is that "Microsoft labor is cheaper than other labor." That isn't going to change. The only solution is to push to make Microsoft less relevant. This is happening, thankfully, but not happening fast enough.

Re:good

[wvmarle]

I think its about time we reccomended the right tool for the right job, as opposed to just avoiding it outright.

I totally agree with that. IE6 for those legacy internal corporate applications that don't work with anything else. The latest Firefox for all other web-related work.

Re:Every month, this is posted

[bunratty]

Of course the popular browser stats don't match your company's data or your client's data. The hit your see on your servers are not representative samples of worldwide browser usage. Why would you expect them to be?

What do you think I'm giving "my opinion" on? It's not "my opinion". It's the data presented by browser stats companies. Look them up. They will almost certainly not match the data gathered on any particular web server, because the data for one particular web server is not a random sample. It is a biased sample.

Are you're saying there's a conspiracy to make IE's share look smaller than it is for the purpose of bash Microsoft? Do you think there's anything I could possibly say to sway you from that opinion?

Re:good

[man_of_mr_e]

Oh please, let's not get into "is equivlent" BS. That's just subjective, and isn't in any way accurate.

No. I don't care who you are, or what your opinions. Promoting your own competing standard is *NOT* breaking the other guys standard. Breaking the standard means deliberately implementing it incorrectly, and there is no other way to interpret it.

It's funny, but i'll bet you're one of those people that say "Copyright infringement isn't theft" (which it's not). Call something what it is. If it's bad, it's bad without equating it to something diferent that is also bad.

Re:Mine Nipples Explode With Joy!

[Richard_at_work]

Yes, but had MS stuck to standards to begin with, you would have been able to just design your pages per the standard, and never had to worry about any browser.

Bollocks. Even following the standards you *still* have cross browser issues - take the HTML5 Browser Storage standard for example, part of which involves an event raised on field changes. The problem is, while the event handler is included in the spec, no requirement is placed on *where* the event handler listener is to be placed in the HTML.

Safari requires it to be placed on the body tag, IE on the document object, and Firefox doesn't really care where you put it. So again you have differences across browsers when its perfectly possible to put a single line in the standard and force conformity across all browsers.

There are examples of this across all web standards and all browsers. It's not as obvious as the standard IE vs everything else issues, but it's there.

Re:Chrome is a keylogger, and scrambling won't hel

[jaavaaguru]

Care to point out which part of the code [chromium.org] acts as a keylogger?

Re:good

[MadnessASAP]

Don't forget bookmarks, god fucking help you if a user loses their bookmarks, they will bring the wrath of god down on you and everyone else around them.

Re:as a web developer, i hate you fucking ad block

[shutdown -p now]

how do you think the shit you like gets paid for?

Depends - I do pay for some shit, when they ask me to pay (or go elsewhere if I don't think it's worth the money). If they don't ask, then why should I care?

but if you were smart, you'll shut the fuck up about it, because the more people who do that, the more the websites you like disappear. if you don't understand that, you're an idiot

Websites are a dime a dozen today, and, thanks to Google, finding one for a given topic is not a problem at all. In practice, it's websites which compete for users' attention, not vice versa. If you do not understand it, you're an idiot.

show some fucking discretion, and stop telling people you block ads. its nothing to be proud of, and you are obviously so very fucking proud of your smug smarmy self

I don't block ads, but I'm seriously tempted to do so now just to spite you. You're obviously very smug to think that whatever you have to offer on your website deserves that much attention.

Re:P.S. NEVER start a sentence with "but"

[siride]

There's no reason why conjunctions can't join two sentences together. Of course, I don't think that's what's happening here. Instead, I think we have a sentential adverb that sets the mood of the sentence, or acts as a semantics-only conjunction, connecting the sentence with thoughts before it without having an explicit syntactic connection. Pronouns and articles already get to do this. But in answer to your question, no, I don't think "without" necessarily indicates contrast. The sentence could go on to be "without these technologies, we'd still be the greatest species on the planet", which confirms the previous thought, rather than conceding it. OF course, in that case, you'd definitely want to use a sentence-initial "and": "and without these technologies, we'd still be the greatest species on the planet". Omitting the "and" leads to a slightly stilted and somewhat disconnected series of sentences. My real problem with your entire line of argumentation is that it is both unsupported by logic and is also limiting. Why force people to avoid useful language because of personal prejudices and opinions? Instead, let's allow people to be flexible in their language, that they may express shades of meaning and nuance that wouldn't be available with the kind of strict, bare-bones approach taken by the modern language pedant (no doubt well-versed in Strunk and White nonsense). Using "but" at the beginning of a sentence does nothing to take away from the meaning of sentence or series of sentences, nor does it contribute to confusion and vagueness (a legitimate concern in effective communication). Rather, it offers a nuanced alternative to other constructions (such as "however" and "though" -- themselves quite valid and useful). I simply can see no downside to using sentence-initial "but" and "and", save for an overzealous strictness when it comes to parts of speech and word usage. We aren't talking about unnecessarily vague and annoying synecdoche like "CPU" for "computer", where an incorrect metaphor has weakened the language of some speakers. If you had called someone out on that, I would have agreed with you. But I can't here because I see nothing wrong with "but". And neither should you, although you are free not to use it at the beginning of your sentences. Just don't tell people they are wrong for doing so.