>> criticised the increased focus on speed of performance that has accompanied increased competition in the browser market as a "drag race".

As opposed to what? A race to see who can produce the shittiest browser with the least amount of standards compliance and innovation...?

Yeah, well Microsoft's welcome to victory there...

How come results are so different between these two counters?

http://www.netapplications.com/newsarticle.aspx?nid=45

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Am I missing something?

People visiting W3C sites probably have FireFox more often than the general population.

no-script is one of the reasons i use firefox, that and adblocker plus.

why so many sites feel the need to use javascript for the simplest of html functionality i'll never know.

w3schools has a different readership. They would be largely techy and therefore more likely to be using an "alternative" browser such as Firefox/Chrome etc.

This could just be a clever ploy from google saying that IE is such a bad thing to race against it has to pay for it's own competition...

The w3schools figure is for browsers using their site.

If you look at the bottom of the page you linked to, it says :

"W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers.

These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users."

W3Schools' statistics are for their site, which is predominantly inhabited by web developer's who have made the right choice and use Firefox :)

"...vendors in many areas of IT compete on some fronts while co-operating in others."

But what happens when your friendly co-operative vendor starts to compete in your main area?

No wonder Mozilla are pissed

w3schools is a pretty tech-focused site and therefore probably attracts the kind of crowd who are IT savvy and thus know about and want to use "other browsers". The rest of the drones just have "the internet" on their desktop via the "e" icon and know nothing of these alternatives oft spoken about in hushed corners of the local hostelry.

Yes, your missing something. Demographics.

People looking at the W3 schools site are more likely to have heard of or be looking up web standards, which means they are more likely to be running firefox.

Its not unknown for games sites with younger audiences to get more than 50% of users on firefox. It all depends on which site your visiting as to which proportion are running which browser.

@carlos: the statistics published by w3schools.com are sampled from their logs. They only represent the browser usage on the websites hosted on their servers. NetApplications has a much wider sample of websites to draw from for their browser statistics and therefor is more representative of the internet in general.

Well, I don't mind faster JavaScript but I can't really see the point. I've never visited or written a site where the performance of Javascript was noticeable. Even AJAX heavy sites and even if I use a four year old laptop.

From the very page you linked to:

"W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers. "

Details of the other site's stats aren't avaliable (without emailing them) but I would guess they come from a less biased source.

from http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp link...

Browsers that count for less than 0.5% are not listed.

W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers.

These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users.

Anyway, our data, collected from W3Schools' log-files, over a five year period, clearly shows the long and medium-term trends.

The count of maybe all statistics on browser usage is questionable. The reason for that being that many browsers (or plugins for them) offer the capability to send a "fake" browser ID to the server, i.e., to the server e.g. Opera appears to be MSIE6, or Safari may mask itself as Firefox 2.x and suchlike.

Particularly in the case of Opera, the fake MSIE guise is often used because certain websites are even in these days "optimised" for MS Internet Exploder, putting out garbage on some other browsers. Or there are forks in the site that send different, "optimized" code to the browser in question, sometimes leading to diminished functionality of the site for that particular browser. Hence the use of the "fake" ID, so the server will send the html "optimised" for Internet Exploder.

Plus, of course, those statistics are normally generated from the stats of servers run by special interest sites -- so you'd have maybe a UNIX-heavy site and you can count on there being a lot of Firefox and Webkit users in their statistics, or a general-consumer-computing oriented site, where you'll get nearly 90 % MSIE.

Way to get some MS hate into the comments of an article that's predominantly not about MS!

IIRC the w3schhols stats are based on visits to their site. I would hazard a guess that a lot of web developers tend to visit and that a higher proportion of web developers use Firefox compared to the general population (i do because of addons like the web developer tool bar).

No idea where the netapplications stats come from but they might be tracking visitors over a load of different sites...

Under the stats on the w3schools page is your answer:

"W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers"

It's still nice to see the proportion so high among techies, but not as surprising as the 20.78% figure over the wider market.

The results are so different because the second one measures browser usage on the w3schools website, which by its very nature will attract a higher proportion of geeks than a general website, and Firefox is the definitive Geeks' browser.

Yep, you're missing the fact that the statistics on the w3schools site is JUST for their site and more net-savvy (i.e. Firefox users) go there than the general public. The other one is (supposedly) a world-wide stat.

"Am I missing something?" - carlos.

I don't know - should be 10 fingers, 10 toes and 2 when you cup-n-cough.

Anyway, the tings to remember here is Mr Disraeli's quote "Lies, damned lies and statistics".

The w3schools numbers are based on their own web server logs. As they state in the notes below the table the nature of the site tends to draw a specific user type - web developers and those interested in web development and far more of these will use Firefox (try debugging a JavaScript error on Firefox vs IE for an explination) than in he general Internet population.

That said this doesn't make Netapplications stats any more accurate. They aggrigate number from 3rd party sites that use their web analytics software. These aren't listed and so you can't check if/how many of these don't actually work under browser X, or force you to switch user agent string to gain access.

In the end all these percentages simply hide the truth. With around 1.4 billion people on the Internet (22% of world population - http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) even browsers such as Netscape that 'only' account for 0.5% of usage represent 7 million users!

And so should Mozilla be worried.

I never rated Firefox too well, being only a modicum improvement over IE. The name for the whole thing was forcefuly 'coolified' to improve its uptake, cos 'mozilla' as a browser name is sh1t.

So come back to get some sympathy from Google when you improve the bloody thing guys!?

Chrome is actually worthwhile a browser IMO given that it actually runs pretty well, and you can use the arrow keys to go up and down pages at a reasonable pace, something thats annoyed me about FF, its too slow.

@carlos

Yes you are, w3schools states on their stats page that results come from their site, which is aimed at "people with an interest for web technologies" and as we all know anyone like that who has half a brain stays well away from IE for multiple reasons.

I don't know where netapps get their numbers from but I would image it's multiple sources which results in more accurate figures.

Yea, you are.

W3schools is for web developers. Generally Web Developers don't use IE as much (since they know how much grief it causes). So you get skewed results.

I've always thought Google's homepage would give a good all round representation of market share

All those counters do is tell you what proportion of visitors to those sites used a particular browser.

The netapplications one is probably more representative of the general population because they cover a wide range of sites. Because of the nature of w3schools, visitors are more likely to have chosen an alternative browser like Firefox, so it skews the figures.

Just remember that Firefox is only one better than IE. It was late passing the Acid2 test, still doesn't pass Acid3 and still has a trail of security fixes as long as your arm. Unless you won't have any arms, in which case, no offence.

@carlos:

The W3 Schools stats are just for their own website, and by its nature it only attracts nerdy people who are massively more likely to be using more nerdy browsers. It's the last site I'd ever look at to gague what browsers normal people are using.

"why so many sites feel the need to use javascript for the simplest of html functionality i'll never know."

Often it's because the developers are brain-dead morons and don't know how to use CSS and instead insist on using javascript to swap images. Alternatively it's the morons that seem to think that the normal, controllable <A> element is far, far too useful and intuitive and they javascript "postbacks" are the only way to go forward (just not back, of course!). See the previous note about these developers being brain-dead morons.

One site takes into account visitors across a broad spectrum of sites. The other takes into account visitors from logfiles to just their sites (w3c). As it states on its own page:

'These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users.'

It is also reasonable to assume that most visitors to the W3Cs sites are generally by those who are 'knowledgable' in IT and the web specifically and are looking for standards information, coding examples or references and as such are not the 'average user' that would sit happily using a browser that is wide open to attack. If you were to go around all the IT departments of the world and ask those people their preferred browser, Firefox would more than trounce the 20% figure in that scenario. I'd bet money on that. However the internet is used by everyone and most people are ignorant of the issues and use what comes with the OS...IE. Additions to the mass IE domination are also not taking into account other considerations such as a locked down IT where you can't install a browser of choice.

My theories behind the vast difference in browser stats. :)

The current IE security collapse (part 94) finally pushed me to go over to Firefox. I am liking my early little babysteps into the FF world, and probably won't go back to IE now...

...but I have heard far too many people reporting bad experiences with Chrome.

OK guys leave him alone... about 20 people have told him about the stat now... I think he gets it.

I am an open FF lover. I don't have speed issues with it because I maintain my PC's well. The browser war will continue and as long as Windows is mainstream IE will always be on top. The rise of the netbook has helped "alternative" browsers to no end. The biggest new thing in browsing was tabbed browsing. Created by Opera, made famous by mozilla and enhanced through cromes "One process per Tab" feature. IE simply copied it very very late on with IE 7.

It needs to take a manufacturer with balls to supply Home PC's with FF/chrome/opera pre-installed and set as default browser (It might end up being the most usefull thing that comes preinstalled on a PC World/Dell PC)

Is adblock the real cause of all this? I know that there was a brief period when I upgraded to FF3.0 when there was no adblocking and I was accidentally exposed to the full horror of the unfiltered internet. It's disgusting, like american TV. Maybe Google wants more ads in your face and hence Chrome. That would seem a particularly lame reason to use their browser and unless you're fond of bugs there is no other reason to even try the godforsaken garbage out.

As for all the log sniffers warbling on about the precise percentage who use firefox, you've missed the point.

Ok, to settle the stat issue:

Net application constantly UNDERESTIMATE the market share of Firefox (an Linux BTW) because it uses a Flash advert to collects it's data and a large percentage of firefox users have the adblock or flashblock extention enabled, and as a result are not counted (I wouldn't be counted for example).

W3Shools OVERESTIMATE the market share of Firefox because it only counts visitors to it's own site and these are more technical users than the general population (and thus more likely to use firefox).

A REALISTIC market share for Firefox would be provided by W3 counter: 30% market share for Firefox.

You can check it out here: http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

@ aldude

Well, dumb-ass comments from Microsoft about how browser speed and performance are somehow unimportant (gee, I wonder why they think that...? maybe because... theirs doesn't *have* any...?) tends to invite hate. And justifiably so.

@the Anonymous Coward (aren't they all?)

>Just remember that Firefox is only one better than IE.

In what way? That comment doesn't even make sense.

>It was late passing the Acid2 test,

Have you tried running the Acid2 test on IE7? No, you haven't. Otherwise you would not have tried to draw such a foolish comparison.

>still doesn't pass Acid3

The latest publicly available version of FF3 scores 71/100. IE 7 scores.... 12. Current betas of IE8 don't do much better.

> and still has a trail of security fixes as long as your arm.

heh heh heh heee heeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaa >snigger<.... BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA AHHAAHAHAAHAH HAHAHAHHA HAAHHAHAHAAHAAA >cough< >cough<

Will the El Reg PFY that's approving these comments PLEASE refrain from approving any more comments like "the W3schools site is for techies". I think we all get the point by now and surely don't need further convincing.

Paris, since her repeats are worth it.

Chrome leaves all the other browsers in the dust when browsing on my netbook and its lame processor, thanks to the good work the crhomium developers did on the javascript engine for it. I WANT to be able to browse faster - on any platform, thank you. And in a couple of years I want a full webbrowser on my phone.

Competition is a good thing!

On a site with > 1 million uniqe visitors / day:

Internet Explorer: 92 %

Mozilla: 6 %

Rest: 1 %

1,001 comments all saying the same thing.

:/

Firefox is for people that have no work to do all day and like searching for plugins to make their mediocre browser run slowly. It's Tomato Sauce, meaning absoloutley anyone can look at it's code and fix it. Unfortunatley most people have a day job, so nobody does. It's got a fan base based of loads of computer nerds which wish they could code (Some even can), and also wish they had a day job. . Sadly no Tomato Sauce people have heard of 'User Experience'. This stops their mediocre browser getting beyond Mediocre. FireFox is driven by a huge marketing campaign. As a result the Tomato Sauce fanclub believe light shines out of the foxes bottom.

Firefox has some neat tricks though. As of Version 3 it opens in under an hour. Firefox also supports Tabs and did so before any other browser (Except Opera, and the other browsers which supported tabs first). This makes it the best browser ever. Firefox is secure. It also supports standards better than any other browser. Unfortunatley these standards aren't used by anyone - yet. It's Standards Ready, a bit like those TV's you get with HD Ready. When the standards get here, Firefox is just waiting and ready!

Internet Explorer is a Mediocre browser made by Micro$oft that is haunted by another browser of the same name from years past. It's quite slow. Occasionally like other browsers it has a security flaw. It also crashes a fair amount. Tomato sauce people love to jump on this and tell everyone how much better Firefox is. This is because they have no lives and because the marketing people told them FireFox wouldn't be like this and that light pours out of the foxes bottom. Millions of people use Internet Explorer everyday with no problems. The same way they use TV's and Microwaves. This is because Internet Browsers are boring. like fridges TV's and Microwaves they do a fairly boring job. I once had my fridge broken into. Internet Explorer is forced on to users of Windows, except the ones that don't use it. Sadly Windows is running on most of the machines out there, and love it or hate it's here to stay. It's made by Microsoft. It's a bit Mediocre. In fact it's rather sh*te, probably because it's not made by the Tomato Sauce people. Internet Explorer is rubbish at standards. Luckilly for Micro$oft since Internet Explorer is the standard so everyone make sure their webpages render on it. Internet Explorer is closed source. This is because Micro$oft is worried someone might steal Internet Explorer. No ones really sure why anyone would want to do that.

Opera is a fantastic browser that can't render half the pages out there. While not rendering them correctly, is does so incredibly quickly. The setup program still fits on a Floppy disk. Most teenagers don't know what a floppy disk is. It makes them snigger though. Opera also supports gestures. Most users gesture at it quite a lot when it doesn't render stuff.

ISafari is a browser that is forced upon you by Apple. Unfortunatley in order to watch movie trailers all users are forced into having quicktime. It's sh*te. All IPod owners are forced to have ITunes, since Monopolys not owned by Micro$oftor Intel are of little interest to the courts. ITunes is sh*te too. both products try to trick users into installing Safari. Safari is not very exciting. Infact it's a bit Mediocre. It does have some cool animations however. Once installed Safari will pop up trying allow itself to be updated once a day. Each update for some reason requires downloading a huge setup file. Users accept this because they just want to browse. Luckilly Fridges haven't got to this stage yet.

Chrome is a browser from Google. While it's apparently had it's Beta status removed this isn't really to be believed. All Googles products must have a Beta tag for at least 4 years.

Chrome is Brown Sauce. The Tomato Sauce people don't like this. It confuses them, also the marketing people told them light shines out of the foxes bottom, and there wasn't supposed to be a competing brand of Sauce. It probably means in the end they'll have to pay for Firefox to continue development, since Google has paid for it thus far. The Tomato Sauce people don't like paying for things. Anyhow like most other browsers out there Chrome is fairly Mediocre. It's exceptionally fast at rendering certain things. Certain things it doesn't render at all. Like all the other browsers out there it's full of security flaws. Chrome also doesn't go Fullscreen like other applications, chosing instead to leave a space around the edge. This is because Google is in bed with screen makers to make us all buy bigger screens.

The purpose of Chrome is to destroy Windows and make it a thing of the past, by running applications in the browser. Sadly Chrome only runs on Windows at the moment.

"Browserstats NL"

You neglected to mention which address these stats represent.

http://www.microsoft.com/nl/nl/default.aspx

Perhaps?

I'm gone.

The homepage can be set to "about:robots".

That and AB+ & Customizegoogle.

Oooops, sorry Google - no dice.

It includes google's spyware... ah... 'updater' and is just a collection of software freely available elsewhere. It also contains norton. go figure.