Chrome Browser Usage Artificially Boosted, Says Microsoft 272
bonch writes "Chrome was recently called the world's no.1 browser, but Microsoft is accusing the source, StatCounter, of using flawed methodology. When a user enters a search in Chrome, the browser preloads an invisible tab not shown to the user, and these were being counted by StatCounter. Net Applications, another usage tracking group, ignores these invisible tabs and reports IE at 54%, Firefox at 20.20%, and Chrome at 18.85%." Whereas the saturation of MSIE is totally organic, right?
I thought this was already refuted? (Score:4, Informative)
StatCounter does not tally pre-loaded pages.
Re:I thought this was already refuted? (Score:5, Informative)
This might be what you are referring to:
"Last month, Net Applications began removing Chrome prerendered browsing traffic from its statistics, noting that “prerendering in February 2012 accounted for 4.3% of Chrome's daily unique visitors.” In doing so Net Applications became the first company to adjust its data reports for websites"
Re:I thought this was already refuted? (Score:5, Interesting)
Huh? The whole point of the GGP's post was that they recognize that there are other statistics services and to point out that those other services also claim that they ignore "Google's inflating tricks" - which, regardless, are not tricks meant to fool stats but to make things faster.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Except that's not the case. Go to any Google website in Opera: it looks different. Why? UA sniffing. Go to Facebook in Opera Mobile: it looks different. Why? UA sniffing.
In both cases Opera functions fine if you change the UA string. Sadly, evangelism isn't enough to fix everything.
Re:I thought this was already refuted? (Score:5, Insightful)
But this is inevitable... you will always have a feature-rich website that you test on a handful of "supported" configurations. If the UA doesn't match the supported configuration, you fall-back to a safe version of the site. You can't possibly test every configuration, and even if you could it wouldn't make any financial sense to do so.
I think it is unrealistic to ask, for instance, Google to just serve up the same page to everyone and let the non-conforming browsers fall by the wayside. They don't want to turn away advertisement targets.
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I was responding to the "go to any Google website in Opera" comment by gsnedders. I don't doubt there are demo or game websites that work in only one browser or another.
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You still have to do QA, and the safest thing to do after deciding what configurations you run QA on is to default to a lowest-common-denominator version of your site. Remember that Google in particular would rather you see a gimped version of their search site than have some crazy error, crash, or display defect.
Re:I thought this was already refuted? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that we're rapidly moving back to the "works best" bullshit, but now with "Chrome" or "WebKit" in place of "IE"...
Re:I thought this was already refuted? (Score:4, Insightful)
Long time since I've seen that, and most sites where I see "works best" it's something like "Internet Explorer 5.5". Oh well.
I can't believe web sites nowadays can afford to have it work well in one browser, and not so well (missing bits/poor layout/whatever) in the rest. Because the most-used browser is only just over half of the users according to one set of statistics, and about a third of the users according to another set. So half or more of your users will see a degraded site.
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> Long time since I've seen that
Take a look at http://getcrackin.angrybirds.com/ [angrybirds.com]
If it were just "works best", that would be one thing, but the new trend is a real throwback to the days of "we just won't let you in if you're not using the one browser we approve of"
> Because the most-used browser is only just over
> half of the users
True on desktop. Not so much on mobile. And oddly enough sites that do UA sniffing and serve different content to "mobile" browsers have all sorts of WebKit-only stuff g
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You know what's really annoying? The fact that all the Webit browsers identify themselves as "Apple Webkit" when it's really "KHTML", a product of KDE volunteers.
Re:I thought this was already refuted? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to mention the thing that has most likely got MSFT worried which is that....NOBODY CARES, they really don't. This is one thing I have to give Moz credit for, because even though I no longer use their browser (I use a Chromium variant call Dragon) they were the ones that FINALLY got websites away from the "works best in IE" bullshit.
Now it doesn't really matter WHAT you use, its all the same. They all render the same pages, they all have roughly the same behavior, so the only ones that care about this little pissing contest is the corps themselves. as far as the users are concerned they honestly don't give a shit if what they are using is IE, Chrome, FF, dragon, QTWeb, Opera, whatever, it all "just works" and for that I say thank fucking God that it does.
Opera and Safari don't work for many of my school's intranet functions. Opera doesn't work for the FAFSA and a number of other scholarship applications (To be fair, the FAFSA works, but it isn't supported). They don't work for many job applications I've done. I think VONAPP through the VA doesn't render correctly. Hell, even my slashdot journal editing doesn't render correctly in Firefox, Chrome, or Opera (had to use IEx64 for it to render correctly). A great majority of websites work independent of the browser, as they should, but some still don't, and unfortunately for me and every student in the country, many of these are from our school or the government.
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Opera doesn't work for the FAFSA and a number of other scholarship applications (To be fair, the FAFSA works, but it isn't supported)
Those are two completely different things if you ask me, particularly if IE, Chrome, Firefox and Safari is supported. Supported to me means tested (okay don't laugh), that someone actually fires up that browser and goes through the use cases. That takes time and money every time either the software is updated or the browser is updated. At some point you make a cut-off saying all the remaining browsers are on their own, they might work but we're not going to guarantee they work. As long as that cut-off list
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Now it doesn't really matter WHAT you use, its all the same.
-webkit-bells-and-whistles: 100%
Re:I thought this was already refuted? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Indeed. I ran Firefox for years but had to keep IE around (using the IETab add-in) for particular sites. When I moved to Comodo Dragon a few months ago, I put it on my work laptop, our home laptop, our two netbooks, and our old XP desktop. I haven't needed or used Firefox or IE since. Sure, a few sites bitch that I'm on an "unsupported browser" but they work fine, and a rare few sites screw up the page layout. But, unlike using Firefox five years ago, I've yet to find anything that simply doesn't work
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One point I believe was being made is that average users in most cases don't know about different browsers. This would be the average person that goes to Best Buy or and just buys a computer for home use, which is most people. Add to this the incredible amount of IT departments that have IE as the only browser installed for their consumers. Average consumers don't know any better, and I'm sure that many companies prefer it this way. It is cheaper in IT providers to keep the default browser, and no extr
Re:I thought this was already refuted? (Score:5, Informative)
Ignore my sibling post, this is what I meant to grab:
"NOTE: StatCounter recently announced that they have updated their data as of May 1, 2012 to reflect prerendering in Chrome. However, there is no indication of either methodology or what percentage of Chrome share is being removed from StatCounter data."
Re:I thought this was already refuted? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think Microsoft cares? They just want to spin the story to cover-up IE's downfall, and don't care if they have to LIE about StatCounter's methodology (claiming they count preloads, when they don't).
Re:I thought this was already refuted? (Score:4, Insightful)
Looks like you're the one spinning the story. The Microsoft blog post linked is from March 18 2012.
http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2012/03/18/understanding-browser-usage-share-data.aspx [windowsteamblog.com]
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So are MS just complaining about a problem which was already fixed before Chrome topped IE in their rankings? That's how it sounds at least.
From StatCounter's FAQ, and also noted on all of their graphs for this time period:
"Further to a significant number of user requests, we are now adjusting our browser stats to remove the effect of prerendering in Google Chrome. From 1 May 2012, prerendered pages (which are not actually viewed) are not included in our stats."
http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#prerendering [statcounter.com]
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StatCounter recently announced that they have updated their data as of May 1, 2012 to reflect prerendering in Chrome. However, there is no indication of either methodology
They state the methodology in their FAQ:
BROWSERS: Do you adjust your browser stats for prerendering/pre-loading? [statcounter.com]
Two browsers are affected by preview-type requests - Chrome and Safari.
Chrome
Further to a significant number of user requests, we are now adjusting our browser stats to remove the effect of prerendering in Google Chrome. From 1 May 2012, prerendered pages (which are not actually viewed) are not included in our stats.
Some points to note:
Prerendering was announced by Chrome in June 2011. This change did not have any significant impact on our stats.
Chrome is currently allowing the detection of prerendering behavior via its Page Visibility API.
Google specifically states: "
Important: This is an experimental API and may change-or even be removed-in the future, especially as the Page Visibility API standard, which is an early draft, evolves."
This means that in the future it may not be possible to track/remove the effect of prerendering on Chrome. If other browsers adopt prerendering then it may not be possible to track/remove the effect of prerendering on those browsers. In that case, the fairest solution would be to include all page views (prerendered or not) for all browsers rather than only excluding prerendering in Chrome. That scenario would require us to revisit this methodology change in the future.
We publish a graph showing total prerendered page views tracked in Chrome, together with the portion of prerendered pages which are not actually viewed by the end user. The prerendered pages (which are not actually viewed) are removed from our stats. For May 2012, the percentage of prerendered pages (not viewed) in Chrome is approximately 1.3%. Note that this change has not had any significant impact on our browser stats. This is due to our use of page views to track browser usage - page views are less susceptible to influence by prerendering than unique visitors.
Safari
The Top Sites feature in Safari shows preview thumbnails of frequently visited sites. These preview thumbnails are refreshed by Safari periodically. Unfortunately, it is not possible to exclude these previews from being tracked. To get a bit technical, this is because the "X-Purpose: preview" header is only sent with the request for the base page. The header is not sent as part of requests for images, CSS or JavaScript that have to be downloaded and executed as part of the Top Sites preview. With online web analytics (as provided by StatCounter) the relevant header information is not passed so these preview requests can't be detected and therefore can't be removed. Ideally Safari will change this to ensure to send the "X-Purpose: preview" header with all Top Sites HTTP requests, however this is not the case at present.
Interesting that Safari is still being over-counted though.
Re:I thought this was already refuted? (Score:5, Funny)
"bonch wites"
Theres our problem.
Google has this habit (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Google has this habit (Score:5, Interesting)
That is part of the misunderstanding people have about Google+. Google plus isn't a Facebook competitor. The way Google has been spinning it is that it is the integration of all of Googles services into a more central account base. Youtube, maps, gmail, google+ accounts, gchat, google music, have been consolidated. they are all part of Google+. People want it to be a street fight between Facebook and G+, so they see it for what they want it to be. You can argue that Google muddies the water by doing this, but to not streamline these services is counter intuitive, and difficult to manage.
Before Steve Jobs died he met with Larry Page and offered advice. Cutting the cruft and tying their products into a cohesive ecosystem are likely the advice he offered.
Re:Google has this habit (Score:4, Interesting)
That is part of the misunderstanding people have about Google+. Google plus isn't a Facebook competitor.
I remember that earlier versions of Picasa had options on sharing your photos with Facebook. Those options got yanked not that long before Google Plus was launched. So I don't think the idea of competing with Facebook is that far from the truth.
Re:Google has this habit (Score:5, Interesting)
That is part of the misunderstanding people have about Google+. Google plus isn't a Facebook competitor.
I remember that earlier versions of Picasa had options on sharing your photos with Facebook. Those options got yanked not that long before Google Plus was launched. So I don't think the idea of competing with Facebook is that far from the truth.
I guess the wording could have been more precise on my part. let me restate it: Google+ isn't just a social network. It is the comprehensive unification of Google services into a more tightly knit ecosystem. Does it compete with Facebook? Yes, but in thinking of Google+ strictly a social network to compete with Facebook is missing the bigger picture. Maybe they will become more alike in the future as Facebook broadens it's scope.
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And... Steve Jobs was never wrong?
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I didn't say or suggest a thing about right or wrong. The Steve Jobs reference was suggesting part of the impetus to consolidate and unify the ecosystem, and the focus on fewer more refined products. Indirectly it was meant to suggest that the move to Google+ had origins outside of a square off with Facebook.
Re:Google has this habit (Score:5, Insightful)
Before Steve Jobs died he met with Larry Page and offered advice.
I think that the advice given was "Fuck off and Die. I will destroy your asses from the grave!"
At least that is in line with everything we had heard him say about Google before.
Steve Jobs turned into a self entitled little fucking brat. Sad really. He started out as an awesome dude.
Then he got full of himself and decided he never needed a lic plate cause he was special. That he could park in handicapped spaces because "I am Steve Fucking Jobs".
I do not like ego driven assholes ever really. But Steve started so high in my opinion and went and got so low that I have a special place of hatred for him.
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Before Steve Jobs died he met with Larry Page and offered advice.
I think that the advice given was "Fuck off and Die. I will destroy your asses from the grave!"
At least that is in line with everything we had heard him say about Google before.
Steve Jobs turned into a self entitled little fucking brat. Sad really. He started out as an awesome dude.
Then he got full of himself and decided he never needed a lic plate cause he was special. That he could park in handicapped spaces because "I am Steve Fucking Jobs".
I do not like ego driven assholes ever really. But Steve started so high in my opinion and went and got so low that I have a special place of hatred for him.
I think Steve was always arrogant, started out that way, and died that way. From what I've read he denied the request initially but was reminded how many people offered him advice when he was starting and then he accepted. When faced with death people often look at the world a bit differently. My father was an angry man most of his life. When the reality of mortality became unavoidable it broke down a lot of barriers in his thoughts, and relationships with friends and family.
If anything in my comment was s
Re:Google has this habit (Score:4, Insightful)
And it's not only Google, MS does similar things. Take their search engine. I don't know how many times I've been sent to Bing when clicking on a link not remotely related to Bing. Does anybody actually use Bing on purpose?
Every company is sleazy, including Google. Some are sleazier than others, of course (IMO the sleaziest tech company is Sony).
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I use Bing, simply because I also use Gmail and I don't want Google to be able to build up a huge profile on my web activity.
Really Bing is not at all bad, though the one thing I miss is the Google calculator.
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Re:Google has this habit (Score:5, Funny)
That's nothing, Facebook has this habit of paying people to troll Google on Slashdot!
bonch has this habit (Score:4, Informative)
That's nothing, Facebook has this habit of paying people to troll Google on Slashdot!
Possibly not in this case. The person who posted the story was bonch, who appears to post questionable stuff in favor of MS and against Google.
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What makes you think Google had anything whatsoever to do with this?
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but coming pre-loaded... (Score:2, Interesting)
or what about MS specific webapps such as their CRM system? I mean I could see if opera were the company that was making the complaint.
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The method in which a user ends up with a browser - by default or by choice, etc - is a whole different topic. What is important for web developers are accurate statistics. I agree with MS on this one, because it sounds like the stats were quite skewed by page preloading, etc. How people ended up with IE doesn't change who is actually using what. I'm trying to figure out why Firefox and Chrome usage is so low on iPad devices - it's quite an anomaly - but again, that's a whole different topic.
(to save thos
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If you really care about metrics though you shouldn't be looking at StatsCounter's global stats anyway. Most likely your demographic is going to be unique and particular to your subject matter.
Lots of corporate viewers? Expect lots of IE.
Lots of gadgeteers? Expect lots of FF and Chrome.
Lots of Linux geeks? Expect lots of FF and Opera.
Etc...
You really need stats for your specific genre of website to best target your users. I would imagine that Slashdot's view stats are skewed pretty dramatically off of
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Statistics are useless anyway, not in the least because of all those bots that pretend to be browsers. Accurate statistics would be nice, but since they're not available, a web developer should spend more attention to what they are actually doing, IMHO... and who, generally and exluding situations that involve terminal greed or idiocy, cares about how many people use old version of IE? I don't, that's like looking at a turd before you flush. I mean sure, have a glance, but don't keep looking and looking and
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Coming preloaded so that people use it isn't artificially inflating the statistics- it's gaining real honest to god users (through sleazy and unfair methods). Storming into people's houses and forcing them to use your software at gunpoint would be sleazy and unfair, but there's no denying that they are now technically your users...
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Re:Prerendering (Score:2)
Re:but coming pre-loaded... (Score:4, Funny)
>> I'm on a poor connection and doing stuff like that slows down the whole internet.
Yes... I noticed the entire internet slow down when you searched earlier. Please stop.
>> It's also dubious that Google boasts their market share with these inflated numbers...
So you think it's doubtful or questionable that Google does this? So do I.
>> And what if one of the search results contain ...
OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!
At least you earned your shill paycheck today.
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You wouldn't know the difference either way, so that attempt at sarcasm is kinda backfiring.
I know that's what you think, but what do I think?
It's rather "OMG think of Joe Sixpack" but hey... while you're being dumb you might as well go for 3 out of 3.
This makes sense (Score:3)
It really does not matter... (Score:5, Funny)
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Am I the only one still using Cello?
Hello...anyone?
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Probably. I couldn't even get it to run on any of my "vintage" virtual machines, let alone render any websites.
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Lynx? Luxury. We had to do everything with telnet.
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elinks has mouse and javascript support. Just saying.
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At one point at school I was using Charlotte a text mode webbrowser on a mainframe. I also maintained a price list on our webserver, and I had to test on Charlotte to make sure it was readable there.
Surprisingly it seems to still exist [ibm.com] and updated shockingly recently.
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Lynx? Doesn't it use that weird WWW thingy?
I'll have to look it up on Gopher and see what all the fuss is about...
Wait a second (Score:2, Insightful)
As usual, the summary makes no sense at all.
So, Google Chrome users who search on Google are counted as users, but they should not be counted?
Or, they are being counted twice? Or are they being counted for the number of tabs they have open?
What's an "invisible tab?" I don't want to read the article, but I don't understand how it inflates the actual number of chrome users. If the summary indicates what the article actually says, then there's no reason to discount these users, as they're not "actually not
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Chrome automatically loads some of the links on the page you are reading in the background, so that when you click on one of those links, it already has the page mostly ready. So when the user reads one page, "the web" sees several pages being loaded.
Slashdot 10 years later, what has changed. Microsoft still the evil empire, Google still the darling startup, and nobody can be bothered to read the article when it's about evil M$.
Re:Wait a second (Score:5, Insightful)
What's an "invisible tab?" I don't want to read the article, but I don't understand how it inflates the actual number of chrome users
I think you said it all right there...
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Did you look at the article? Geolocation weighting? It's bloody five pages.
I don't come to Slashdot for the articles :)
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Don't those analytic services load an IFrame or some trick enough to get at their own statcounter cookies, and uniquely identify the user (seat)?
Yes, it would increase the chance that you get picked up and noticed as a user, but I don't see this being a problem for IE, since you only have to be noticed once to get counted. This "invisible tabs" isn't something I see throwing the count into 10x territory since that user would still be uniquely identified by the tracking cookies. So I visit 10x as many site
As opposed to what? Naturally boosted on the web? (Score:2)
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If we're going to be pedantic, would you prefer "emergent vs. engineered" to "organic vs. artificial"?
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Actually yes, and I'm not ashamed of my preference.
Wrong conclusion (Score:2)
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Many firms measure page views, Net Applications (which shows IE in the lead) counts unique users.
Which is more important depends on what you plan on doing with the numbers (abstract "my browser is bigger than yours comparisons" not tied to any actual useful purpose can use either equally.)
Canadian stats (Score:4, Informative)
Unique Users for the past 30 days
1.IE 66,554 42.21%
2.Safari 37,213 23.60%
3.Firefox 20,703 13.13%
4.Chrome 14,552 9.23%
5.Android 3,736 2.37%
*source: google analytics
On The Other Hand, Could It Be... (Score:5, Interesting)
Could it be that Chrome is on every Android platform and Android is on a lot of things? Many more pieces of hardware than Windows Mobile. Although I am a little dubious of the claim that "Chrome is #1" the growth makes a lot of sense where it has nothing to do with "hidden tabs" but that the installbase has exploded.
Re:On The Other Hand, Could It Be... (Score:4, Informative)
1) The Android browser is not Chrome (different UA string, different JS engine, different WebKit version, etc).
2) Total smartphone internet usage is much much smaller than desktop usage, so numbers that measure usage as opposed to installs are still pretty desktop-dominated.
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You can install Chrome in ICS. I have it running on my Asus Transformer right now. It's a bit different than the bundled browser but 90% the same.
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Sure. You can install the Chrome beta. But the point is that it's not installed by default, install numbers are low, and ICS deployment is _also_ low.
All of which is to say that Chrome on Android is not a significant part of Chrome market share.
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I've used a Droid, an Eris, and now have an Incredible. I use the Chrome sync feature, and I seem to recall that carrying over from the Droid up to the Incredible. Are you sure the default browser isn't Chrome, maybe just without the branding?
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It's Webkit based, and that's about where the similarities end (so is Safari and a lot of minor browsers). You could say the same about Chrome for Android too really, there's nothing particularly "Chrome" about it besides the branding. Not sure what sync feature you're referring to, but I think it's probably more of a Google account thing rather than a Chrome browser thing, there were definitely things like that before Chrome was released for Android.
The User Agent doesn't specify it as Chrome anyway, and I
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I got a Droid about 3 months after they came out. They definitely weren't using Chrome. It was one of my gripes. Chrome for Android was released in Beta 4-5 months ago. Before that, you just had Browser. Both can coexist on a phone.
The fourth FAQ here indicates that they are different: https://developers.google.com/chrome/mobile/docs/faq [google.com]
Wikimedia stats agree with StatCounter (Score:5, Informative)
The Wikimedia browser stats [wikimedia.org] pretty much match the StatCounter ones: 25.36% IE, 24.99% Chrome.
Note that Wikimedia is (a) a top-10 site with a broad general international readership (b) a charity with no direct interest in the question of "which browser wins?" but only in knowing the actual answers, so as to serve the readers.
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Quite possibly, yes. Those are raw numbers from the Squid caches (a sample of 1 in 1000 hits).
Just adblock lowlives like StatCounter (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't use a browser without adblock these days and retain sanity. And unless you decide to throw away your privacy, you'll block trackers like Google Analytics or StatCounter.
So join me on the mission: drive apparent Firefox usage stats to 0.
Geo Weighted (Score:2)
What is country level weighting, and why do you do it?
The Net Market Share data is weighted by country. We compare our traffic to the CIA Internet Traffic by Country table, and weight our data accordingly. For example, if our global data shows that Brazil represents 2% of our traffic, and the CIA table shows Brazil to represent 4% of global Internet traffic, we will count each unique visitor from Brazil twice. This is done to balance out our global data. All regions have differing markets, and if our traffic were concentrated in one or more regions, our global data would be inappropriately affected by those regions. Country level weighting removes any bias by region.
So I'm to trust numbers that I know have a flawed methodology?
Why not these then
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp [w3schools.com]
Oh, but weight, stat counter started removing chrome over counts.
Further to a significant number of user requests, we are now adjusting our browser stats to remove the effect of prerendering in Google Chrome. From 1 May 2012, prerendered pages (which are not actually viewed) are not included in our stats.
Other sources agree with Statcounter (Score:5, Informative)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser_market_share#Summary_table [wikipedia.org]
In the data for April, only Net Applications put MSIE significant ahead of Google Chrome. The other 3 sources, on average, give *lower* usage of MSIE than Stat Counter.
Aggressive promotion (Score:2)
Preloading and employer filters (Score:5, Interesting)
A tangentially related question: Has anyone gotten in trouble with violating their employer's Acceptable Use Policy due to browser preloading / precaching? Often, in search results or even certain news sites there are outbound links to places I'd never visit from work. But if Chrome (or even Firefox) is clicking those links behind my back, my IP address is in a corporate log somewhere as having "visited" that site, isn't it?
How are these preload/precache "hits" distinguished from normal hits? Obviously, if some of the sites are filtering these out, there's some way to tell them apart. At the same time, if the "hits" were noticeably different, there's always the chance the webserver would serve up different pages based on this difference.
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MS at it again (Score:2)
Imagine my surprise when I loaded up Skype on my iPhone today and noticed that at the top of your contact list, it now displays an ad banner - for Internet Explorer! With an "install now" notice.
Not only did I think someone at MS might be smart enough to realize that I can't install IE on my iPhone, but I thought this is the exact anti-competitive behaviour they had been found guilty for? You know, pushing the crapware IE with their near-monopoly in other areas?
Anyone got a Skype alternative? I knew it was
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Not only did I think someone at MS might be smart enough to realize that I can't install IE on my iPhone, but I thought this is the exact anti-competitive behaviour they had been found guilty for? You know, pushing the crapware IE with their near-monopoly in other areas?
I doubt Skype has a monopoly in its market.
Poppycock! (Score:2)
I run it on 100% of my two machines!
Who cares (Score:2)
IE usage is Inflated (Windows Update) (Score:2)
IE only runs for a lot of people when they run windows update.
Because no one has found a way to use Chrome or Firefox to run windows update.... yet..
Yawn (Score:2)
And the world cares, why?
We know the truth here (Score:2)
Pot calling the kettle black...
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How is eating dogs morally different from eating cows or pig or salmon?
Heck, dogs are the go to meat/bones supply for my fortresses of dwarfs.
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Dogs have personality, personality goes a long way.
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Dogs have personality, personality goes a long way.
If that were a criteria, cannibalism would be rampant.
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So do pigs, geese, and crickets. Yet eating them is fine (well unless you are Jewish/etc).
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One could argue that the bundling was the "behind-the-scenes shenanigans to inflate their numbers," particularly given common browser bundling practice at the time (also known as not doing it). That argument would be much weaker in today's environment, where everyone bundles a browser, but Microsoft's decision was not made in that environment.