It must be said that while browser battles are not as captivating as they were in the late 90s and early 2000s, they still have a rather fascinating side to them.
Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome are fighting it out hard and fast.
But the thing is that there is no sure way to tell who currently has the crown. Two of the leading online market researchers regularly put up some downright perplexing numbers — quite unlike hardware research firms, for instance.
There usually is a minor difference in shipment numbers from say IDC, Gartner and IHS iSuppli. But while measuring hardware sales is one thing, gauging web browser usage is totally another.
Net Applications indicated a few days back that Internet Explorer reigned as the number one browser in August 2013. In fact, according to the data provided, IE 10 was on the verge of becoming the most popular web browser on the market.
Figures from StatCounter, however, once again, tell a completely different story.
Its statistics indicate that Chrome is the leading browser out in the wild — and that too by some distance. Google’s application enjoys a market share of 42.78 percent, leaving Microsoft’s solution in second place with a 25.55 percent share of the slice.
Firefox is good enough for third place with 19.25 percent.
So where do the companies stand on all this, you may ask? Microsoft, for what it’s worth, does not comment all that much on these statistics, but it does use the numbers provided by Net Applications when talking about Internet Explorer and its growth.
There is a theory floating around that both Microsoft and Google are behind these figures, in some capacity at least. Whether this is true is one thing, but there is no denying the fact that the tech savvy users of today actually choose the browser that they like the most.
Statistics are just fun and games when it comes to browser choices these days!
All Comments
I use Chrome but not that much. I still don’t think the average consumer really gets into the browser wars as much as the websites do, and I have a hard time believing that IE only has 25%. Although I suspect a lot of that is that almost every program you download or install these days is either trying to get you to install Chrome as well or make it your default browser. That and a lot of sites saying they only work with Firefox for Chrome, when they actually work just fine with all 3.
Ray, you are exactly right on all points. When you upgrade Adobe reader, you have to UNCHECK the box so you don’t install Chrome and/or Google toolbar. Really, really bad. A ‘tune-up’ software I use also has a checkbox you have to UNCHECK otherwise you get Chrome/Google Toolbar. I dropped my subscription. Windows is used on 90%+ of the world’s OS but it only has 25% of browser traffic? Yah, sure. I’ve also seen sites that say they only work in Firefox or Chrome. That’s a bunch of bull.
figures don’t lie but liars figure.