Lacisoft's » ie7

Romanian browser usage trends 2010

lacisoft — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 16:39:28 +0000

Following the success of my last year study about browser usage in Romania i decided to repeat the study this year, around the same time (June – middle of the year). The methodology is the same , i took browser data from trafic.ro for a few sites (the most visited in Romania) and made an average of them.

The numbers gave me the following chart which covers the period from November 2007 to June 2010

This chart covers all browser versions that have more then 0.25 percent market share in Romania. As you can see, from December 2009 Internet Explorer 6 started to loose market share rapidly and i put this on the account of Google. Last December i think was the time when Google announced that they won’t support IE6 on many of their apps anymore. Also since my last study IE8 is steadily taking share from her older siblings IE6 and IE7 while Firefox 3 was taking share also from IE6 and IE7 claiming the title of the most used browser version in Romania.

My last year’s prediction that Google Chrome will reach 10% by the end of the year didn’t become a reality, now Chrome being somewhere over 7%. This is understandable because Google Chrome failed to deliver its initial promises as i recently pointed out. Still i think that because of the aggressive promotion conducted by Google it will reach well over 10% this year. Opera is steadily at 4% while Safari being under 1%. Firefox 1 is the least used browser in this study with an average of 0.29%. I guess next year we can ignore it and we can also ignore his younger sibling FF2 which is below 1% and is dropping fast.

This time i made another chart that covers browser market share by vendor. More specifically i didn’t break up specific versions so all Internet Explorer versions appear as IE and all Firefox versions appear under FF.

It is well pointed out in this chart that IE took a serious hit last December and the main gainer of this hit was Firefox. Chrome’s rapid ascension can be observed too.

I will not come up with any predictions this year. But i can say this. 2010 will enter in browser history books as the year of demise for IE6. By the end of the year i think everyone will drop support for this ancient browser. It is time.

Romanian browser usage trends

lacisoft — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:16:04 +0000

I’ve recently made a study about the browsers preferred by romanians. I don’t claim this study to be 100% accurate but it can be useful in some situations.

The methodology was simple. I took the browser data for a few of the largest romanian sites listed in Trafic.ro (a web statistics system which provides browser usage data) and i made from those numbers the following chart which covers the period between November 2007 and June 2009

What is clear from this chart is that:

the days of IE6 as the leading browser are numbered. It may take approximatively 2 months and Firefox 3 market share will pass beyond that of IE6
IE7 would have been the leading browser but as we see around April 2009 when IE8 appeared IE7′s market share started to fell. IE8 is cannibalizing her older sister.
Google Chrome is steadily climbing. Now it is around 2% and it gains market share month by month very rapidly (2% is very fast if we take into consideration that Opera is at 4% for about 4 years)
Opera is stuck at 4% and it does not seem to grow beyond this number in the near future.
Safari is growing but at a very very small pace
There are still about a combined 4% of Firefox 1 and Firefox 2 users

One thing is sure. Internet Explorer’s domination is coming to an end. The browser market is very competitive and there are quite a few options to choose from.

What the study doesn’t show but i’m predicting now is that by the end of the year Google Chrome will pass 10% and it will take market share both from IE and Firefox.

Upgrade your browser!

lacisoft — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 07:05:29 +0000

Often i found myself wondering about why people use some antique and insecure software. For example Internet Explorer 6. This browser was launched back in 2001 and many many people still use it. Now when Internet Explorer 8 is about to be launched. In fact if you look in the statistics of any high trafic website you can see that Internet Explorer 6 is the most used browser. After that comes other variants of Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Also there is a high number of people still using Firefox 2. If in IE6 case we can understand to some point that people found it difficult to upgrade, in Firefox’s case we cannot. Because Firefox has built in updating mechanisms which deliver users a new version right as it is available. I must assume that people deliberately opt not to upgrade. And i cannot understand why!

Why is wrong to use old and in most cases unsupported software ?

1. Because these software products (IE6 and/or Firefox 2) have some serious security vulnerabilities which are very much known to hackers. If you wondering why you are full of viruses and trojans, why your personal information is being stolen, you can blame those old and insecure browser you are using.

2. Because some of the sites you’re visiting won’t display properly in them. Many of the newer sites were designed for modern browsers and probably use features that you’re browser isn’t capable to understand.

3. Because older browser in some cases tend to use more computing resources (memory and processor). For example Firefox 3 has been optimized to consume less memory then Firefox 2.

4. Because it lacks many features that could increase your browsing experience. Modern browsers have tabbed browsing, included phishing filter, private navigation and much more.

Yeah but i heard one must pay for Internet Explorer 7 ?

Wrong!

At first people had to validate their Windows to be able to install Internet Explorer 7, but later Microsoft realized that doing this will just help hackers to exploit Internet Explorer’s vulnerabilities. So they removed the need for validation. You can check out news about this here, here and here.

You can just download and install Internet Explorer 7 even if you have a pirated Windows. In fact if you turn on your Automatic Updates feature you will be upgraded for free and you also receive some security patches in order to secure your computer.

Why you shouldn’t disable Automatic Updates

Microsoft Windows has a built in feature called Automatic Updates. What this does ? When certain bugs or security vulnerabilities are discovered in Windows or other Microsoft products like Internet Explorer, Microsoft issues a patch to fix these problems. With Automatic Updates enabled these fixes are downloaded to your computer and applied to your operating system and affected programs.

So what is your problem with Firefox 2, i have been told its safe!

It was safe a year ago. Now it isn’t. The Mozilla foundation stopped supporting Firefox 2. You can read about this here. It states clearly:

“Please note: If you’re still using Firefox 2.0.0.x, this version is no longer supported and contains known security vulnerabilities. Please upgrade to Firefox 3 by downloading Firefox 3.0.6 from getfirefox.com.”

Ok, you convinced me. What options i have ?

If you like Internet Explorer you can stick to it. Just upgrade to a newer version like Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 8.

Download Internet Explorer

If you like Firefox you should use the latest version and if not you should still use some variant of Firefox 3.

Download Firefox 3

You can try some other browsers like:

Google Chrome

Opera

Safari

No matter which of these you use, upgrade to the latest version if you want a safer web and a better browsing experience.

Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 released

lacisoft — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:24:10 +0000

Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 RC1. You can find it here. The final launch is probably in the first half of this year. The question is how many people will make the switch, because i’m horrified by the large number of people still using Internet Explorer 6 years after Internet Explorer 7 has been released.