Internet Explorer 8 came out today, I've been using the beta a bit and it's actually pretty good. I've never used IE routinely but as it renders pages differently from other browsers, I use it for compatibility testing. Come to that, I use lots of Microsoft products, I don't disparage them just because they're Microsoft. I do prefer alternatives though, if they do what I need.
So the news sites have the obligatory stories on IE's declining browser market share. I came across this gem of misinformation on Wired, from Reuters:
According to a recent survey by IT consultants Janco Associates Inc, Internet explorer has a 72.2 percent market share, ahead of the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser with 17.2 percent. Google Inc's new Chrome browser has only 2.8 percent of the market, while Apple Inc's Safari has less than 1 percent.
Not quite sure what they mean by 'recent', perhaps five years ago? OK Chrome wasn't out then, but, still. So I did a little survey of my own website stats going back to September 2007, when I switched to Google stats.
So in 2007, IE's share was just under 60%, now it's just under 50%. Firefox is up from 32% to almost 40%, Safari and Opera are trucking along at 4-5% each (though some stats sites have Safari at 8-9%), and Chrome is 3% and growing.
I think it's safe to say my site does not attract a broad cross-section of society, which would explain why it leads the way in embracing the values of Anything But Microsoft.
