Nestoria UK Blog

Fellow Nestanalysts,

No, the browsers haven’t all gotten together to create a funky tune in an unusual meter. Rather, it’s simply time for the latest instalment in a series of posts (1 2 3 4) which concern themselves with the popularity of various browsers, as used to access Nestoria.

Why

To be honest, there’s more than one reason we’re interested in keeping track of how users access Nestoria.

However, the single largest concern is user experience. Using Nestoria should be easy, intuitive and a consistent experience, no matter what your choice of browser. Keeping an eye on browser usage lets us test and tweak Nestoria so that we can achieve these goals.

Microsoft: losing ground

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has managed to lose a further 3% share of the ‘visits pie’ since our last review (in June):

2% of that goes to Chrome;

1% to Firefox;

1% to Safari; together with

a 1% decrease in ‘others’ (Opera, Camino and the like).

Slow but steady

Whilst change may not happen overnight, the browser arena is definitely an interesting space, and it’s nice to see that things are far from stagnant.

Even my parents know of and use Firefox – that has to say something about this open-source browser’s impact on society, although adoption seems to be slowing when compared to that of less established browsers.

The uptake of Google’s Chrome is an indication that users can be lured by promises of speed and stability (having said that, I’m sure a whacking great banner on the world’s most popular homepage doesn’t hurt either).

Perhaps Safari’s success can be attributed to the rising market share of Macs, or perhaps impressive standards compliance.

Firefox 2: Going, going…

Firefox 2.x usage pales in comparison to that of it’s 3.x brethren, representing less that 1% of browsing on Nestoria.

3.x versions account for nearly 18%.

IE8 & 7 = substitutes, IE6 = no substitute

The most obvious (and probably correct) conclusion that can be drawn from the above graph, is that IE7 users are the new IE8 users. They switch from new to newest, and this is reflected in the almost mirror-like red and blue plots. I suspect these are home users, free to upgrade to the latest and greatest at the instruction of Windows Update.

Many ‘corporate’ users have no such freedom, but instead are subject to the oversight of their IT departments. I would hazard a guess (not for the first time in this series), that the majority of our IE6 users are browsing from workplaces, where IE6 still reigns supreme. Will Windows 7 succeed where Windows Vista failed, and bring with its success the banishment of IE6? Tune in next time (or the time after) to find out.

iPhone >> Penguins

As predicted, more users visited Nestoria using iPhones/Pods in this period than they did using Linux-powered computers (no, not including OS X). There was an especially sharp uptick in such usage around the festive season – I think there were a number of happy iGift recipients around that time. It should also be noted that these figures don’t include iPhone app usage.

Also interesting is that Symbian visits continue to increase, whilst Android really hasn’t made that much of a splash.

That’s all for this instalment. We’re always keen to hear your thoughts and opinions on topics we blog about, and those we don’t. Please get in touch, comment below or tweet at us.

• You are important to us (Nestoria reader/user)
• You use a browser to get to us
• Therefore, the browser you use is important to us too

3 simple truths, just as true now as they were almost a year ago, when we brought you our original ‘Browser Wars’ post.

With several recent developments in the area (the sad demise of Netscape, and the rise of questionable ‘viral’ campaigns), we thought now would be a good time to provide you with the 2007 data for Nestoria browser usage. Please click to enlarge the graphs.

No major surprises overall. The Windows-bundled Internet Explorer led the pack, with a 2007 average of 84% of all visits. Firefox came in a respectable second, with 12% of visits. Safari representation was uncharacteristically high at 4%, Opera bringing up the rear of the big hitters with 1%. Interestingly, our statistics vary considerably from W3School’s, which has Firefox only 20% behind IE.

So what about specific IE / Firefox trends? Well, there’s possibly a very slight negative trend in % of IE use, and a very slight positive trend in % of Firefox usage. Relative share seems fairly stable.

Possibly the most interesting data is that for version share. IE7 overtook IE6 around October 2007 – showing that Microsoft’s big push hasn’t been in vain. However, there’s still a high number of IE6 users – I would hazard a guess that these are mostly within the workplace, where managers have not yet made the move to IE7. Unhindered by similar issues, the switchover from Firefox 1.5.x to 2.x was quick and progressed almost to 100% usage of 2.x.

To conclude
What do these statistics mean? For us, they mean time spent testing and tweaking our site on the appropriate range of browsers. For you, faithful user*, this hopefully translates into increased site performance and Property Hunting Pleasure?Ѣ?Ć.

As always, please feel free to fire off a comment, or send us some feedback.

* For the crazy cats accessing Nestoria on their PSPs, PS3s, Wiis, iPhones, we’ll do our best.

?Ć This isn’t really trademarked…