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Safari Inches Up in August, IE Inches Down

Safari Inches Up in August, IE Inches Down

by , 8:35 AM EDT, October 2nd, 2008

Apple's Safari Web browser continued to grab marketshare in September, inching up to 6.65 percent from August's 6.37 percent. In comparison, Microsoft's Internet Explorer continued its downward trend to drop below 72 percent for the first time, according to data from Market Share.

The Windows-only Internet Explorer started September with 72.15 percent of the Web browser marketshare, but dipped down to 71.52 percent by the end of the month. Microsoft's browser had been steadily losing market share for months on end.

Firefox, however, reversed its upward trend slightly to dip from 19.75 percent down to 19.46 percent. Considering variations in Web browsing habits and data tracking, the cross-platform browser likely maintained its position compared to August.

Safari and Firefox have been on an upward swing for months as interest in both browsers continues to grow. In comparison, Internet Explorer has been losing market share to both for well over a year, which is likley an indication that many Windows users are hunting for alternatives to Microsoft's market dominating Web browser.

Google's Windows-only Chrome Web browser made its debute in September, and managed to carve out its own little niche on the stats chart with 0.78 percent of the marketshare. Since the newcomer only has a few weeks under its belt, there's no way to know yet if it will have a significant impact on the other browsers that are already established in the marketplace.

While the statistics are handy for getting snapshot overviews of a particular Web browser's popularity, looking at the numbers over time offers a better impression of overall popularity. In this case, the numbers seem to indicate a growing interest in Safari and Firefox at the expense of Internet Explorer.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:vasic Posts: 279 Joined: 09 Aug 2005
Subject: Incredibly important

There are still companies out there that develop only for IE. The stats indicate that they are ignoring almost 3 out of every 10 customers.

In any normal business, the person who made the decision that resulted in such a rate would have been fired without severance pay.

How much more marketshare does IE have to lose in order for these buinesses to realise what they're doing to themselves?

Close Name:Guest
Subject: IE In Business

The reason some companies still develop for IE is that their infrastructure is based on Microsoft servers/services (Exchange, IIS, etc). It is the path-of-least resistance, and generally cheaper in terms of cash and time-to-deployment.

I'm not say that it's the *best* choice, but it generally is the easiest to justisfy.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: "IE Only" products...

One thing to note about "IE Only" products (since I develop them myself)...

A lot of companies have very robust in-house products that only employees use. Employees that, by the way, either don't have security permissions to install any other browser or are simply told to use IE by their bosses. This allows companies to save TONS of money by not wasting time and $ on multi-browser support since IE comes with every Windows version.

Close Name:vasic Posts: 279 Joined: 09 Aug 2005
Subject: Skewing the score

Not to mention that these IE-only mandated installations are skewing the results; if there was any allowed choice, a large percentage of these PCs would be running non- IE browsers.

Close Name:Guest
Subject:

Quote
vasic wrote:
There are still companies out there that develop only for IE. The stats indicate that they are ignoring almost 3 out of every 10 customers.

In any normal business, the person who made the decision that resulted in such a rate would have been fired without severance pay.


Great point, vasic.

Close Name:rpaege Posts: 96 Joined: 16 Dec 2005
Subject:

Few things are more frustrating than using a Mac in an enterprise environment where IE rules, and Safari is usually no help all. So, for those of us in such a situation, Firefox is pretty much the only real choice we have. Not just because it has a myriad of free extensions either.

It doesn't matter that Safari renders a second or two faster, or that it passes the latest standards test. What matters is how much fussing I have to do to work with various sites, and Firefox so far, wins that contest and Safari fails.

Even at home I simply cannot use Safari because I just can't stand blinking flash ads and crap-vertising all over everything. I like all the extras I can add to my browser, none of which are available - for free - for Safari.

So as a half decent default browser Safari is OK, and will suffice until I download Firefox. I'm sure there are millions of people just like me who feel exactly the same way. So don't expect Safari to see huge gains any time soon.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Have you heard of Safari Stand?

It can block Flash and do much more, check it out:
http://hetima.com/safari/stand-e.html

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Re: Have you heard of Safari Stand?

Quote
Anonymous wrote:
It can block Flash and do much more, check it out:
http://hetima.com/safari/stand-e.html


Like anything else, people want the ease of having that feature "built-in" to Safari instead of having to d/l and install some 3rd party helper app to do the same thing.

Considering that Safrai is forced upon Windows uses now as part of the QuickTime/iTunes version updates for Win OS, it is surprising that Safari's web browser share has not increased even more. But people's browser usage habits (they just go for that blue "e" and unwillingness to change/try something different is hard to change.

Close Name:Intruder -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 3149 Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Subject: Re: Have you heard of Safari Stand?

Quote
Anonymous wrote:
Considering that Safrai is forced upon Windows uses now as part of the QuickTime/iTunes version updates for Win OS, it is surprising that Safari's web browser share has not increased even more. But people's browser usage habits (they just go for that blue "e" and unwillingness to change/try something different is hard to change.


You could deselect it in the updater, that way you won't feel like it is being "forced" upon you.

The rest of your post I agree with. Habits are very hard to change.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Re: Have you heard of Safari Stand?

You and I and other more knowledgible computer users can, but "Joe and Joan Sixpack" out of habit, don't realize they can deselect it. I actaully like Safari on Windows but many don't.

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