75% of Network Connections Not From Browsers 397
Trailwalker writes "An article at BigBlueBall.com states that 75% of web connections do not use a browser. IM and P2P applications are used instead." While surprising, this is probably more indicative of how instant messaging has been able to complement and/or replace email in recent times.
Less spam (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Less spam (Score:3, Funny)
Come on, let me differ!
Re:Less spam (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, I recieve many, MANY spam e-mails. I think anyone with an e-mail address has experienced lots of spam.
I run my own mail server, and I've got about 5 active users that have used the e-mail address for things. Friends, family.
Since 12/12/2003, my amavis-new/spamassassin/postfix machine has filtered out 7012 messages. That's 350 spam messages each day, for 6 mailboxes. It's insane.
So, it's cool. I'll let you differ all you wish, but I beg to differ your difference.
Re:Less spam (Score:2)
But 350 messages a day compared to the 10 or so messages you actually want (my numbers) is far better than what comes in through my *(snail)mailbox
Re:Less spam (Score:5, Funny)
I've still got the logs on my machine, and I'm thinking about putting them up in a section on my web page.
Here's an excerpt from a good one:Or this one...Thankfully, it's stopped... but it was entertaining for a while.
Re:Less spam (Score:3, Funny)
snuglybaer493 (1:40:12 AM): cool. i was just hangin out. kinda bord.. kinda horny
kwabla78 (1:40:27 AM): are you horny like a rosebush?
snuglybaer493 (1:40:33 AM): should i take that as a yes?
kwabla78 (1:40:34 AM): or wait... was that "thorny"
So... which one is the bot?
Re:Less spam (Score:5, Informative)
Except for the sounds, and you can turn those off by yourself.
Re:Less spam (Score:5, Insightful)
well... yeah (Score:2, Funny)
SPAM and Worms (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:SPAM and Worms (Score:2, Funny)
Couples are gay. People who want to be "together" should be shot "together."
I think someone needs a hug!
The article says nothing like that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The article says nothing like that (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't use IM, but I've certainly had occasion to use Media Player.
They also skip the one piece of data that may have been of real interest to anyone but someone looking for an "emerging trend" to rape and pillage. What percentage of time do these people allocate to their IM client as opposed to their web browser. The simple fact that they use an IM client is pretty meaningless without knowing this.
The article also seems to be a bit rife with clueless confussion between the net and the web, using the words interchangably even when the distinction matters to their own point. A remarkable feat given how short the article is.
Which may be why there was no discussion about email, usenet and irc. Perhaps they consider these as normal browser functions or something? Their language certainly supports the conclusion that they think the browser is the standard net tool, as opposed to web tool. I can go a week or so using the net pretty heavily without ever accessing the web at all, and yet not using any of the "net" tools that have attracted their interest either. I get the feeling that this is even possible would surprise them.
Which may be why they seem to have trouble distinguishing the difference between things that originate locally and those that originate from the net, because to them if you don't have a browser loaded the implication is that it didn't come from the net.
Well, what can I say? If you're in London and you get an IM from someone in Pretoria and you don't realize that you're on the frickin' net you must think the other person is a little pixie who lives inside your monitor and is writing messages to you by scrawling on the backside of the screen with his little magic crayon or something.
My experience is that if there is any cause for confusion it works the other way around. Grandma thinks of the computer as an internet device and assumes everything is net.
"No grandma, you don't need an internet account to look at your pictures. They're inside your own computer (the little pixie takes care of them). You only need an internet account to look at the pictures on other people's computers. That's right. That means you don't have to be afraid to miss any calls while you're playing solitaire either."
KFG
Gaming..? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gaming..? (Score:4, Informative)
msblast (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:msblast (Score:5, Funny)
Re:msblast (Score:4, Funny)
Re:msblast (Score:5, Informative)
Re:msblast (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:msblast (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:msblast (Score:4, Funny)
Re:msblast (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. You should see the incoming access logs from my firewall. There are hundreds of attempts per week from random IP's which are hitting ports like 17300, 901, 35xxx, 6129, etc. which are known ports that viruses/worms use. It amazes me the number of unpatched Windoze systems out there. How does the buyer of a new PC get it online at home without catching 3 worms in the first 10 seconds??
Re:msblast (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe mirosoft needs to add a quick windows update check to the bootprocess? Ping home giving a list of installed updates, if theres any more critical than prompt the user to install now before anything else loads.
Re:msblast (Score:3, Insightful)
Even better, Microsoft should continually issue and make available for download updated installation CDs with all patches included.
Another, more bandwidth saving aproach would be to make it dead simple to burn a new updated installation CDs using an original disc and a bunch of patches.
No, I'm not holding my breath.
/greger
Re:msblast (Score:3, Insightful)
The answer is, of course, he doesn't.
I dunno, my dad called me the other day explaining how a friend of his from work was having problems with his computer (it was the worm that shut down the machine after 60 seconds and you couldn't stop it... which one was that?), I just basically said I had no idea (c'mon, I use linux, I never have to deal with this crap).
The ultimate solution is to keep all your wi
Re:msblast (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people don't want to know. It has nothing to do with laziness, but there's only so much time that they're willing to spend on computers.
I'm not sure if there's a solution unless the program / OS part of a computer is more or less read-only (some pre-installed applications, and that's it).
Damm I knew I'd get caught (Score:4, Funny)
My 4000 song lawrence welk collection just got found out....
I thought I was doing the music world a favor, renaming song , and artists like shaggy with welk tunes behind em...
Guess Ill have to go back to spam for a living....
surprising? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:surprising? (Score:4, Insightful)
I would assume "most people" don't even use instant messaging though. I've never understood what people see in using instant messaging. If I want to chat online I'll just use IRC and if I want to send someone a message without waiting for a reply I'll use e-mail. IM seems to serve no real purpose except for people too lazy to use the already existing technologies. Besides, if I really need instant gratification from someone THAT bad it's more likely I'll just call them on the phone.
Re:surprising? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:surprising? (Score:4, Insightful)
They may be different server side, but client side, how much difference is there, especially if you use a meta-im (eg kopete). In kopete, adding an AIM, YIM, or IRC contact is the same. Though when you first setup the account you have to specify which of the IRC networks that account connects to, being an extra step over setting up AIM or YIM (one server) on a meta-im client.
PS, Email and IM can work together (psst KDE devs: add kopete into kontact)
Email is on the way out.... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's much more convenient to just start up a program, punch a few numbers, and see who is on for real-time conversations and get all the messeges they sent while you were away. Further, with the increased use of Webmail based email servers, it is becoming more and more inconvenient to check it... It's become rare to have a non-isp provided email account be POP3 by default.
Is AIM ready for the spotlight? Not quite... AIM, the popular one with teens, i'd say, still needs to work on privacy, logging, and message ability while someone isn't logged on. ICQ is a more perfected clinet, but the settings and UI are much too complicated for a novice.
Until recently, I only checked my email every couple weeks.. i'm on AIM almost constantly.
Re:Email is on the way out.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Email is on the way out.... (Score:2)
Some advisors for students were also availa
Re:Email is on the way out.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Other than that, I kind of agree.
Re:Email is on the way out.... (Score:2)
For distributed, collaborative projects e-mail is indispensible. How could a potentially unbounded set of people collaborate if they had to keep open a IM window per discussion group? Also, IM is great for simple conversations, but if I want to get detailed, e-mail is the way to go....
Re:Email is on the way out.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It might be broken, exploited, less sophisticated, and maybe even not as convenient as IM, but it's still at least as ubiquitous. Also, IM has a lot of conventions which make it often times (not all times) less professional or even communicative. For example, IM stresses ways to shorten words but not necessarily make things anymore clear (or more developed). It's a lot like a phone in many ways. And sure we use the phone a lot - to varying degrees of success.
Email is just becoming a mainstay of many people's life. And it is very accessible - it really is like electronic mail (it has many mail conventions) and people seem to respond to its simplicity well. Also, the art of writing a coherent sentence, proof reading it, and then choosing a better word or phrase is much more suited to email.
I just hope I didn't prove my ignorance of these things in this post ;)
Re:Email is on the way out.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Email is on the way out.... (Score:2)
real email clients need only add some IM features like the "buddy list" notifications and an instant email screen for IM like conversations...
The next generation of messenging should remain open standard and distributed, not just some service from a single provider. There is no reason to drop the current email addressing scheme in favor of aol's screen names... someone from the sendmail group needs to get together with some open source and
Re:Email is on the way out.... (Score:2)
Huh? I find webmail to be very convenient. I can check my mail anywhere in a very secure manner: it's very easy to find a public machine that allows me to authenticate via https as opposed to one that has an ssh client. (I don't trust telnet since, years ago, some haX0rs set up a packet sniffer on our dorm ethernet and got oodles of passwords.)
Re:Email is on the way out.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not if you want to get things done. (Score:2)
Re:Not if you want to get things done. (Score:2)
And this is why Yahoo! Messenger rocks... you check a box, and "log on invisible." Unlike every other client that notifies everyone who has you on their list with bells and whistles when you log on.
Re:Not if you want to get things done. (Score:2)
MSN has "Appear Offline" and ICQ has "Invisible". I don't know about AIM, but I bet it can as well. Have you actually ever *used* another protocol than Yahoo?
Re:Not if you want to get things done. (Score:2)
A/S/L? A/S/L? A/S/L?
U ignring me? A55h0le.
Cya L8r =)
Re:Not if you want to get things done. (Score:4, Insightful)
76% of something else (Score:5, Informative)
The article states that "76 percent of active Web surfers access the Internet using a non-browser based Internet application." I take this to mean not that only 24 percent of traffic is HTTP traffic but that 76 percent of people who use the Web use something else as well.
RTFA (Score:3, Informative)
Is that unambiguous enough?
Re:RTFA (Score:2)
Is that unambiguous enough?
No... because they also say,
So obviously, "Internet Applications" means something besides web browsers. Otherwise, 24% of people would be accessing the web via direct telepathic connection or something.
Re:RTFA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:75% of something else (Score:2)
How the hell would they know? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously - how do they come up with this number? Are they packet sniffing the entire internet?
I'd like to know their method before I would worry about their conculsion.
Weaselmancer
Nielsen (Score:5, Insightful)
how do they come up with this number?
From the article: "Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, December 2003". More information on Nielsen's products [nielsen-netratings.com] may interest you.
If Nielsen's net ratings work anything like their TV ratings, then lucky families get paid to put a spybox between the cable modem and the home router, with full knowledge and consent of what's going on. I'd expect an airtight privacy policy; Nielsen has provided TV ratings for over a decade.
Re:Nielsen (Score:3, Interesting)
Nope; they have you install software spyware onto your Windows computer, and it watches at least your IE. I'm not sure if it also watches other browsers, but when I tried it, it didn't seem to try to call home until I loaded IE up for a page that wouldn't load in Mozilla.
Why did I even install it? The "
Think again (Score:2, Funny)
Web != Internet (Score:2, Insightful)
Subject line is misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
It DOES NOT say that 75% of the connections are made by non-browser applications.
There is a difference, and I blame the lack of any sober editors at Slashdot today for this getting through.
Re:Subject line is misleading (Score:2)
Re:Subject line is misleading (Score:2)
New research just in: (Score:4, Funny)
After performing an in-depth study of the article summary, I estimate that 24% of people don't do any of these things.
Questions (Score:2)
What about e-mail (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, Windows Media Player and Realplayer establish browser connections to their media homepages anyway; does it count as a browser connection? In most cases, it is not even initiated by the user (the user might be wanting to play MP3's).
What about e-mail? It is very important and widely used by everyone; but it doesn't even make the list!
Re:What about e-mail (Score:2)
QuickTime Player does that too.
Several apps establish Internet connections to look for new versions. On my Mac, in addition to Apple's Software Update, there's BBEdit, GraphicConverter, AIM, Acquisition, and probably others.
Also, iTunes does CDDB lookups whenever I ins
seen it before well kinda (Score:2, Informative)
Re:seen it before well kinda (Score:2)
Internet has always been *much* more than www (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't mean to badger at statistics without seeing their complete methodology, but many people just leave their IM client connected. And don't WMP and RealPlayer phone home? So it seems hard to hold to numbers without specifying an activity which can more easily be linked with HCI time.
The truth is that IM and music players probably are the big draw for most people, which is the conclusion in article title ("Instant Messaging and Media Players are Primary Internet Applications"). Of course, hasn't the Internet always been a majority of activity not directly related to a web browser? Is this news, or a new (more realistic) perspective?
What are people using Windows Media Player for? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does a media player need to connect to a server so frequently? What information is it sending out? What good does Windows Media Player provide the end user, that it is taking up 34.43% of the web connections?
Re:What are people using Windows Media Player for? (Score:2, Funny)
Sheer Bandwidth (Score:3, Insightful)
One 3 minute streamed video clip at 300 kbps may require as much bandwidth as 100 webpages.
Wording doesn't make sense (Score:2)
This doesn't make sense. Perhaps the genius technologists at Nielson assume that all Internet traffic is Web (or W-W-W) traffic. Ummm, no.
These kind of statements should tip you off that these people probably have no idea what they're talking about. If they can't even describe it in an accurate manner, how accurately have they gathered the results? Thi
Get the terminology right (Score:2)
What a bogus statement. Sure, I might believe that 75% of the connections on the Internet don't use a browser, but I damn well don't believe that 75% of Web connections don't use a browser. The World Wide Web and the Internet are Not the same thing.
Internet != Web (Score:2)
I'm quite certain that most web connections still come from browsers, while internet connections can be from most anything.
Regards,
--
*Art
to translate, web surfer = Internet user (Score:2)
Now you can understand what they mean. Sadly, if you use the Internet for ANYTHING the common media considers you a web surfer.
SSH, FTP, IM, anything, it's ALL web surfing according to them. No, it ain't right, but it's more like "Common knowledge" - remember the SNL gameshow?
Re:to translate, web surfer = Internet user (Score:2)
Traffic != use or usefulness (Score:2, Insightful)
With the advent of VPNs... (Score:4, Insightful)
POP3 Anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
How often does the average user's email client (read: Outlook Express/Outlook) check for new messages on the server?
In the same light, how often does IM clients check for new messages? Does it reuse the same connection, or initiate a new connection with the server? (I'm assuming its client->server, due to NATs, firewalls, etc).
Just because the client software is constantly requesting data does not make the software more popular. Statistics about *active* use (say, page hits, email messages, etc) would be more informative.
Re:POP3 Anyone? (Score:3, Informative)
Never. You can't have an IM system that requires a server to be polled (well, there are some Jabberhttp gateways that work this way, but they aren't true IM). An IM client leaves a connection to the server open, and receives messages from the server when they arrive.
active online (Score:2)
Always on??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry to nitpick (Score:2)
Huh? Last I checked, the Web was different from the Internet! You'd think people would figure this one out by now. Of course, if you're merely talking about HTTP traffic then I guess some P2P apps would be involved (gnutella uses HTTP to negotiate and download).
and none of these use email? (Score:2)
er...what about email? (many popular pop3/ imap mail clients can be adapted to use the InterNet, I am told)
ah! i get it - these 75% of users haven't migrated from uucp/ janet/ arpaNET for their mail yet
seriously though, what a crappy survey
If anyone else is thinking *they* mi
Lies damned lies and statistics? (Score:2)
One of the worst examples was a poll that was done in BC in 1994 when there was a big fight over logging issues, and the environment movement was getting a lot of support.
There was a poll done, that asked if people thought that environmentalists were responsible for the sorry s
if it talks HTTP to a server, it's a browser. (Score:2)
75% of web connections do not use a browser
More like 100%.
IE speaks HTTP to a server, it renders the resulting data that comes back.
Opera speaks HTTP to a server, it renders the resulting data that comes back.
Mozilla speaks HTTP to a server, it renders the resulting data that comes back.
Grip speaks HTTP to a server, it renders the resulting data that comes back. (as CDDB entries)
wget speaks HTTP to a server, it renders the resulting data that comes back. (as file-transfers to a directory).
If it
100% of Web users use browsers (Score:2)
Now, I don't doubt that a number of Internet users don't open IE, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera in an average day and only use AOL, e-mail, ICQ, and the such... but those people are not "Web" users, they're just "Internet" users.
I'm not quite sure what this article is trying to tell us... "Internet" and "Web" are not interchangable words.
So what about web+P2P? (Score:3, Interesting)
The idea is to create a P2P network that actually runs using PHP pages as the peers... technically it would be "pure browser" since tha pages use http to communicate.
Article doesn't say that at all (Score:2, Informative)
What are they trying to communicate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, there's no better info available... The company's original press release is pretty much reproduced in its entirety, word for word, by bigblueball news. I hope that Nielsen's clients aren't actually paying for info like this.
The other 75% (Score:5, Funny)
Well, maybe not ALL of those people are doing that, but the cool ones are
The Internet is not the Web (Score:3, Insightful)
The summary makes it sound like 75% of port 80 connections aren't from web browsers, which would be weird IMHO. (On the other hand, there are lots and lots of web crawlers/spiders out there, so I could believe this stat too, at least for an "average" site.)
argg...terminology (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, saying that 75% of internet connections are not by browsers isn't news at all.
Just pointing out that "web" implies www which implies http or https and nothing else.
Here, let me try to fix this. (Score:3, Informative)
Referenced Nielsen article: 76% of browser users have used a streaming data client or an instant messaging client. (dull)
Hmm.
Re:slashdotting... (Score:2)
Re:yup, I agree with that in general (Score:2)
Besides, how do you get more info? Those little headlines don't do much for me. I normally want more info.
But how do you block? (Score:2)
It's an interesting problem, with no easy solution. Broadband ISPs could start using firewalls that block all incoming TCP SYN packets, but that's going to piss off a lot of people, and then
Re:I can definitely attest to this (Score:3, Interesting)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=79523&cid=7
How...weird.
Re:I can definitely attest to this (Score:2)
(BTW, if anyone has trouble with the link, try clicking here [slashdot.org]... there was a stray space in the one above.)
Re:25% HTTP is a heck of a lot though.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It must be pretty difficult... (Score:2)