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I've never been able to make sense of Net Market Share's numbers or why they're so wildly divergent from nearly every other source. Just take a look at the big

I've never been able to make sense of Net Market Share's numbers or why they're so wildly divergent from nearly every other source. Just take a look at the big ones listed on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Summary_table http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Sum... The other stats sources consistently align in a pretty narrow range of around 2%-7% for any given browser. But Net Market Share consistently shows Chrome as more than 10% lower, and IE more than 20% above what every other stats provider is seeing. The only thing I can figure is that their sample base is just too narrow to avoid what seems to clearly be a severe systemic bias.

xutopia 14y ago
I just started a conversation on Twitter with the author. https://twitter.com/garyharan/status/307905674279518208 https://twitter.com/garyharan/status/307905674279518208
- nixarn 14y ago
  Yeah, weird stats. I checked some other sources: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp … (IE 14%, Chrome 48%) http://gs.statcounter.com/ http://gs.statcounter.com/ (IE 29%, Chrome 37%) My own website with 10k+ daily visitors has IE 14% and 35% Chrome
- mythz 14y ago
  Our tech site (servicestack.net) last month stats: - Chrome 59% - Firefox 18% - IE 8.7%
anonymfus 14y ago
They weight results against number of internet users in different countries according to CIA, most of others don't weight. Major source of difference is China, just select China on StatCounter and see.
cooldeal 14y ago
I believe this explains it: One big difference is that NetMarketShare tries to measure unique clients, while StatCounter measures web page hits. Since the power users browse (probably a magnitude of order) more web pages than the normal users, Chrome and Firefox is overrepresented in power users who browse a ton. Toothpaste marketshare analogy. It's possible that 70% of people use Colgate and 30% use Crest, but Colgate sales by volume are only 40% vs. 60% for Crest, since Crest users tend to brush more daily and use more of the toothpaste when they do for some reason. Or a car analogy: Toyota sells 40% of cars and Honda only 30%, but 60% of miles driven on roads are by Honda cars since they use it more. Which has a higher marketshare?
- xutopia 14y ago
  So from what I gather NetMarketShare measures number of users more closely than does StatCounter. Statcounter OTOH measures how much traffic use there really is.
- afsina 14y ago
  I believe NetMarketShare data is 'sponsored'.. http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#net-apps http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#net-apps
  - recoiledsnake 14y ago
    What on that page makes you believe so?

xutopia 14y ago

I just started a conversation on Twitter with the author. https://twitter.com/garyharan/status/307905674279518208 https://twitter.com/garyharan/status/307905674279518208

nixarn 14y ago
Yeah, weird stats. I checked some other sources: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp … (IE 14%, Chrome 48%) http://gs.statcounter.com/ http://gs.statcounter.com/ (IE 29%, Chrome 37%) My own website with 10k+ daily visitors has IE 14% and 35% Chrome
mythz 14y ago
Our tech site (servicestack.net) last month stats: - Chrome 59% - Firefox 18% - IE 8.7%

anonymfus 14y ago

They weight results against number of internet users in different countries according to CIA, most of others don't weight. Major source of difference is China, just select China on StatCounter and see.

cooldeal 14y ago

I believe this explains it: One big difference is that NetMarketShare tries to measure unique clients, while StatCounter measures web page hits. Since the power users browse (probably a magnitude of order) more web pages than the normal users, Chrome and Firefox is overrepresented in power users who browse a ton. Toothpaste marketshare analogy. It's possible that 70% of people use Colgate and 30% use Crest, but Colgate sales by volume are only 40% vs. 60% for Crest, since Crest users tend to brush more daily and use more of the toothpaste when they do for some reason. Or a car analogy: Toyota sells 40% of cars and Honda only 30%, but 60% of miles driven on roads are by Honda cars since they use it more. Which has a higher marketshare?

xutopia 14y ago
So from what I gather NetMarketShare measures number of users more closely than does StatCounter. Statcounter OTOH measures how much traffic use there really is.
afsina 14y ago
I believe NetMarketShare data is 'sponsored'.. http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#net-apps http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#net-apps
- recoiledsnake 14y ago
  What on that page makes you believe so?