7 ms·

"Internet Explorer, ... the world’s most popular browser" That's no longer true, right?

jamesaguilar 13y ago
The browser formerly known as the world's most popular browser. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://gs.statcounter.com/ http://gs.statcounter.com/ I'm honestly quite amazed. When Chrome first came out, I remember asking my teammates why we were wasting money on developing a browser, thinking it would never be more than a niche product. Another reason why I'm not Google's CEO, apparently.
- mrb 13y ago
  I like your humility! If only more HN users could be more humble like this.
  - welly 13y ago
    I'm not very good at many things.
- mjolk 13y ago
  W3Schools is hardly a good reference for anything, but they even tell you why you shouldn't take these stats and extrapolate/generalize. >From the statistics below (collected from W3Schools' log-files over a period of ten years), you can read the long term trends of browser usage. These are the browsers that hit W3Schools, a site for people that need quick reference when making webpages, not across the internet.
- filestar 13y ago
  Statcounter measures the amount of browsing, not unique people. Netmarketshare attempts to measure the latter and shows IE on top. http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=1 http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qpri... So it depends on what your definition of "popular browser" is. Is it the browser that's used by most people? That would be IE. Is it the browser that most browsing happens? That would be Chrome. Of course, this is ignoring the fact that both Statcounter and Netmarketshare are not perfect and don't cover all or even most sites' logs. As others have noted, W3schools only measures hits to the W3Schools site, which is not even close to be being representative of the web.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    To be honest, I mostly wanted to comment to share my anecdote and make a Prince reference. I'm not really trying to make an argument one way or another for browser popularity. BTW, I personally think the browsing-time metric is better than unique-users, because applying the latter metric to music would have had Rebecca Black as the most popular artist of 2011. Which conclusion, though true under some definitions, might not be quite as useful as other possible conclusions.
    - victorf 13y ago
      After I read that she donated the money from her YouTube to a charity to help Japan, she became my favorite pop artist of 2011. I do concede that you're right in general.
- rogerbinns 13y ago
  Think strategically. It doesn't really matter what the user base of Chrome or Android are. What they do is raise the bar. Competitors and alternatives need to be at least that good. Javascript performance was pretty dismal until Chrome came around, and then everyone had to up their game. Until Android, mobile platforms were tightly controlled walled gardens (although Windows Mobile was amongst the least worse). Now everyone wants Google Mail, Maps and Search on their mobile devices. Google ultimately makes money through usage and the platform + apps/browser don't matter that much financially. Without Chrome and Android, there is a strong possibility of being cut out completely.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    I mean, I know that now.
  - mgkimsal 13y ago
    " It doesn't really matter what the user base of Chrome or Android are. What they do is raise the bar. Competitors and alternatives need to be at least that good." Yes it does matter, at least some. No one even knows what the bar is if no one is using it. Someone could put together a wickedly fast browser with fantastic privacy controls, release it tomorrow, but if no one used it, it wouldn't have any effect on major browser makers. JS performance went up in other browsers due to Chrome only because Chrome was gaining users (even if the base was small at first), mostly because they were able to push Chrome from Google.com itself.
- pippy 13y ago
  I wonder why MSIE has made a comeback in the last two months. a 4% increase is quite a lot. As a web developer I hope the trend does not continue.
  - Semaphor 13y ago
    10 (and afaik 11) are good browsers, I can't complain about them. I have yet to fix anything specifically in 10.
    - magicalist 13y ago
      yes, and automatic browser updates by default is a great new change as well for IE (unfortunately nothing for people sticking to their XP, though)
    - pippy 13y ago
      MSIE is still lagging far behind in HTML5 standards: http://html5test.com/results/desktop.html http://html5test.com/results/desktop.html While MSIE may be 'good' browser (tastes may vary, I find the UI horrible) it's damaging to the web ecosystem to have MSIE leading the marketshare. It's advantageous for Microsoft to limit new features and keep interoperability between browsers low. As a result the entire web using public loses out on having new features and having a broader choice. Chrome and Firefox are built on open source software, so when an issue occurs you can participate in the process of it being fixed.
      - sequence7 13y ago
        html5test.com is a test of HTML 5 in the same way that w3schools.com is a school for the w3c. Just take a look at their FAQ http://html5test.com/about.html http://html5test.com/about.html and you can almost instantly dismiss their scoring system. Chrome and Firefox are awesome though.
logical42 13y ago
notorious != popular
dangrossman 13y ago
It's the second most used by a few percentage points, and in recent months trends have actually reversed -- Chrome is losing share and Internet Explorer is gaining. http://www.w3counter.com/trends http://www.w3counter.com/trends (The bump in the Safari line was the inclusion of Mobile Safari in the Safari share statistic)
- atwebb 13y ago
  I haven't been able to get Chrome stable in the past month or two and gave up and went back to FF after trying a few different things. I've missed my old buddy Firefox, he's grown up a lot.
- farnsworth 13y ago
  Do you know why that is? It looks clear from multiple sources that people must be switching from Chrome/FF to IE.
  - nl 13y ago
    Possibly people switching to Windows 8 and trying out IE.

The browser formerly known as the world's most popular browser. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://gs.statcounter.com/ http://gs.statcounter.com/ I'm honestly quite amazed. When Chrome first came out, I remember asking my teammates why we were wasting money on developing a browser, thinking it would never be more than a niche product. Another reason why I'm not Google's CEO, apparently.

mrb 13y ago
I like your humility! If only more HN users could be more humble like this.
- welly 13y ago
  I'm not very good at many things.
mjolk 13y ago
W3Schools is hardly a good reference for anything, but they even tell you why you shouldn't take these stats and extrapolate/generalize. >From the statistics below (collected from W3Schools' log-files over a period of ten years), you can read the long term trends of browser usage. These are the browsers that hit W3Schools, a site for people that need quick reference when making webpages, not across the internet.
filestar 13y ago
Statcounter measures the amount of browsing, not unique people. Netmarketshare attempts to measure the latter and shows IE on top. http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=1 http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qpri... So it depends on what your definition of "popular browser" is. Is it the browser that's used by most people? That would be IE. Is it the browser that most browsing happens? That would be Chrome. Of course, this is ignoring the fact that both Statcounter and Netmarketshare are not perfect and don't cover all or even most sites' logs. As others have noted, W3schools only measures hits to the W3Schools site, which is not even close to be being representative of the web.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  To be honest, I mostly wanted to comment to share my anecdote and make a Prince reference. I'm not really trying to make an argument one way or another for browser popularity. BTW, I personally think the browsing-time metric is better than unique-users, because applying the latter metric to music would have had Rebecca Black as the most popular artist of 2011. Which conclusion, though true under some definitions, might not be quite as useful as other possible conclusions.
  - victorf 13y ago
    After I read that she donated the money from her YouTube to a charity to help Japan, she became my favorite pop artist of 2011. I do concede that you're right in general.
rogerbinns 13y ago
Think strategically. It doesn't really matter what the user base of Chrome or Android are. What they do is raise the bar. Competitors and alternatives need to be at least that good. Javascript performance was pretty dismal until Chrome came around, and then everyone had to up their game. Until Android, mobile platforms were tightly controlled walled gardens (although Windows Mobile was amongst the least worse). Now everyone wants Google Mail, Maps and Search on their mobile devices. Google ultimately makes money through usage and the platform + apps/browser don't matter that much financially. Without Chrome and Android, there is a strong possibility of being cut out completely.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  I mean, I know that now.
- mgkimsal 13y ago
  " It doesn't really matter what the user base of Chrome or Android are. What they do is raise the bar. Competitors and alternatives need to be at least that good." Yes it does matter, at least some. No one even knows what the bar is if no one is using it. Someone could put together a wickedly fast browser with fantastic privacy controls, release it tomorrow, but if no one used it, it wouldn't have any effect on major browser makers. JS performance went up in other browsers due to Chrome only because Chrome was gaining users (even if the base was small at first), mostly because they were able to push Chrome from Google.com itself.
pippy 13y ago
I wonder why MSIE has made a comeback in the last two months. a 4% increase is quite a lot. As a web developer I hope the trend does not continue.
- Semaphor 13y ago
  10 (and afaik 11) are good browsers, I can't complain about them. I have yet to fix anything specifically in 10.
  - magicalist 13y ago
    yes, and automatic browser updates by default is a great new change as well for IE (unfortunately nothing for people sticking to their XP, though)
  - pippy 13y ago
    MSIE is still lagging far behind in HTML5 standards: http://html5test.com/results/desktop.html http://html5test.com/results/desktop.html While MSIE may be 'good' browser (tastes may vary, I find the UI horrible) it's damaging to the web ecosystem to have MSIE leading the marketshare. It's advantageous for Microsoft to limit new features and keep interoperability between browsers low. As a result the entire web using public loses out on having new features and having a broader choice. Chrome and Firefox are built on open source software, so when an issue occurs you can participate in the process of it being fixed.
    - sequence7 13y ago
      html5test.com is a test of HTML 5 in the same way that w3schools.com is a school for the w3c. Just take a look at their FAQ http://html5test.com/about.html http://html5test.com/about.html and you can almost instantly dismiss their scoring system. Chrome and Firefox are awesome though.

logical42 13y ago

notorious != popular

dangrossman 13y ago

It's the second most used by a few percentage points, and in recent months trends have actually reversed -- Chrome is losing share and Internet Explorer is gaining. http://www.w3counter.com/trends http://www.w3counter.com/trends (The bump in the Safari line was the inclusion of Mobile Safari in the Safari share statistic)

atwebb 13y ago
I haven't been able to get Chrome stable in the past month or two and gave up and went back to FF after trying a few different things. I've missed my old buddy Firefox, he's grown up a lot.
farnsworth 13y ago
Do you know why that is? It looks clear from multiple sources that people must be switching from Chrome/FF to IE.
- nl 13y ago
  Possibly people switching to Windows 8 and trying out IE.