Fellow Nestoraks,
It’s been almost a whole year since we made ourselves a nice cup of tea, set aside one or two hobnobs and delved into Nestoria’s browser usage statistics. (More in this series: 1 2 3)
It’s that time again, so put on the kettle and we’ll begin.
Why?
If you’ve read any of these posts before, you’ll know that we like to keep an eye on what browsers our users prefer. This is so that we can make sure that Nestoria runs as smooth as possible on all those that are popular.
If you’ve read any of these posts before, you’ll know that we like to keep an eye on what browsers our users prefer. This is so that we can make sure that Nestoria runs as smooth as possible on all those that are popular.
General Trends
Internet Explorer’s (IE) share continues to fall, with a 3% drop from roughly this time last year, down to 77%. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s hard not to wonder how the recent rulings and allegations by the European Commission’s competition authorities and Microsoft’s response regarding bundling of IE will affect future figures.
Yet again, Firefox has increased its share by 2%, now representing 16% of our users.
Safari has managed to increase it’s 4% share and is now up to 5%. The recent release of Safari 4 might mean another small increase in this share is to come.
Version Trends
IE6 still refuses to go away. As before, I expect this is related to the continuing prominence of Windows XP/IE6 in businesses. It remains to be seen whether the switch to IE8 and Windows 7 will make any impact on this statistic. It seems quite clear from the figures that users are not currently migrating from IE6 to IE8, but instead are moving from IE7 to IE8 – perhaps just those at the forefront moving at the moment, with a 10% drop in IE7 users reflecting the 10% increase in IE8.
Things couldn’t be more different from our last post as far as Firefox goes – uptake of the new (3.x) version being nearly complete (from 2.x). A stark contrast to the IE position.
Playing catchup
Usage of Firefox, Safari and Chrome seem to be increasing at the same rate. This must mean that all are taking share from IE, whilst seemingly not affecting each other’s uptake. We’ll keep an eye on this to see if any one browser’s uptake manages to pull ahead.
Mobile usage
Although we don’t specifically target mobile users as such, we do get the odd couple who make use of the site, and those users are increasing in number. In fact, iPhone/iPod usage is about to reach and I suspect, overtake that of Linux (on Nestoria at least
. Meanwhile, Symbian (a mobile OS) usage is also increasing. Interesting times. The given statistics do not currently reflect ‘netbook’ usage, but mobile usage on the increase. Something we will be keeping a keen eye on.
We hope you enjoyed this little meander through some of our statistics. Please do let us know how everything’s working for you, especially if you have any particular issues.
