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Akamai is probably trying to identify unique sessions or clients, and showing stats based on that. Statcounter is tracking browser usage roughly by percentage

Akamai is probably trying to identify unique sessions or clients, and showing stats based on that. Statcounter is tracking browser usage roughly by percentage of requests. They do some corrections, for instance they try to account for Chrome's prefetching. More people (or more computers) might use IE as their default browser, but if Chrome is responsible for more activity (requests), what's the more popular browser?

dbaupp 14y ago
> Chrome is responsible for more activity (requests) Does anyone know if the prefetching/prerendering Chrome does is a significant portion of web traffic? Because that could easily skew request-based analytics.
- kalleboo 14y ago
  Statcounter claim to adjust for chrome's prefetching, but they never said how (headers?)
  - Tobu 14y ago
    Probably the page visibility API: https://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/pagevisibility https://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/pagevisibil... Headers wouldn't work, because a prefetch often turns into a page view. Edit: their methodology is public. They use the aforementioned API, and headers for the two other browsers that prerender (Firefox and Safari, who rarely prerender because pages must explicitly configure it). Pages pre-rendered and discarded would add 1.3% to Chrome page views if they weren't discounted. Here is the StatCounter FAQ: http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#prerendering http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#prerendering
  - powertower 14y ago
    > Statcounter claim to adjust for chrome's prefetching It didn't seem to make any non-marginal effect on the graph. I wonder if they can accurately account for the pre-rendering. Of course, pre-rendering might just be that good, that it's always hitting the right pages.
powertower 14y ago
> what's the more popular browser? In the most general of ways, the browser more people use. Which in this case, via Akamai stats, is clearly IE.
- saturdaysaint 14y ago
  So Chrome is the most used browser and IE is the browser used by the most people. Which is the more profitable status?
  - azakai 14y ago
    > So Chrome is the most used browser and IE is the browser used by the most people. Which is the more profitable status? It depends. Are you selling ads by pagehits? Then the former. Are you selling user info by number of users? Then the latter. (And aside from ads and personal info, browsers don't make money in a direct way.)
    - mdwrigh2 14y ago
      > (And aside from ads and personal info, browsers don't make money in a direct way.) Not entirely true. The Chrome Webstore makes some money, though admittedly not much.
      - simonbrown 14y ago
        Source?
        ShawnBird 14y ago
        http://support.google.com/chrome_webstore/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1070840 http://support.google.com/chrome_webstore/bin/answer.py?hl=e...
        simonbrown 14y ago
        That doesn't tell me how much money Google makes from it, if any.

dbaupp 14y ago

> Chrome is responsible for more activity (requests) Does anyone know if the prefetching/prerendering Chrome does is a significant portion of web traffic? Because that could easily skew request-based analytics.

kalleboo 14y ago
Statcounter claim to adjust for chrome's prefetching, but they never said how (headers?)
- Tobu 14y ago
  Probably the page visibility API: https://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/pagevisibility https://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/pagevisibil... Headers wouldn't work, because a prefetch often turns into a page view. Edit: their methodology is public. They use the aforementioned API, and headers for the two other browsers that prerender (Firefox and Safari, who rarely prerender because pages must explicitly configure it). Pages pre-rendered and discarded would add 1.3% to Chrome page views if they weren't discounted. Here is the StatCounter FAQ: http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#prerendering http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#prerendering
- powertower 14y ago
  > Statcounter claim to adjust for chrome's prefetching It didn't seem to make any non-marginal effect on the graph. I wonder if they can accurately account for the pre-rendering. Of course, pre-rendering might just be that good, that it's always hitting the right pages.

powertower 14y ago

> what's the more popular browser? In the most general of ways, the browser more people use. Which in this case, via Akamai stats, is clearly IE.

saturdaysaint 14y ago
So Chrome is the most used browser and IE is the browser used by the most people. Which is the more profitable status?
- azakai 14y ago
  > So Chrome is the most used browser and IE is the browser used by the most people. Which is the more profitable status? It depends. Are you selling ads by pagehits? Then the former. Are you selling user info by number of users? Then the latter. (And aside from ads and personal info, browsers don't make money in a direct way.)
  - mdwrigh2 14y ago
    > (And aside from ads and personal info, browsers don't make money in a direct way.) Not entirely true. The Chrome Webstore makes some money, though admittedly not much.
    - simonbrown 14y ago
      Source?
      - ShawnBird 14y ago
        http://support.google.com/chrome_webstore/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1070840 http://support.google.com/chrome_webstore/bin/answer.py?hl=e...
        simonbrown 14y ago
        That doesn't tell me how much money Google makes from it, if any.