Featured Article: Hidden Dimensions - Another Christmas Arrives, Same Old Apple TV
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
Thu Oct 02, 2008 10:25 am 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?
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.
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.
Thu Oct 02, 2008 11:13 am Subject: Skewing the score
Quotevasic 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.
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.
It can block Flash and do much more, check it out:
http://hetima.com/safari/stand-e.html
QuoteAnonymous 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.
Sat Oct 04, 2008 12:12 pm Subject: Re: Have you heard of Safari Stand?
QuoteAnonymous 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.
Recent Headlines - Updated Sunday, November 23rd, 2008
- Sun., 10:00 AM
- TMO Contest - TMO Macworld Expo 2009 Pass Contest Closes Sunday
- 7:15 AM
- Podcast - Apple Weekly Report #134: iPhone Software 2.2, Apple Lawsuits, & Naughty iPhones
- Fri., 7:15 PM
- iPO Free on iTunes - Photography Specials
- 6:35 PM
- Khronos Group Shows Off OpenCL Standard
- 5:15 PM
- John Martellaro's Blog: StrangeCharm - HD, DRM & iTunes
- 4:30 PM
- iPO iPhone Gaming News - EA Reveals Plans For SimCity on iPhone
- 4:00 PM
- Psystar Lawsuit Filings Reveal Potential Document Policy Problems at Apple
- 2:40 PM
- Mac Gaming News - Puzzle Adventure Game Book of Legends Comes to the Mac
- 2:20 PM
- TMO's DealsOnTheWeb.com - Philips 8.5" Widescreen Portable DVD Player With iPod Dock: $129.99 Delivered
- 12:05 PM
- The Simplified Guide to Buying a New HDTV System
- 10:20 AM
- PopChar X 4.1.1 Improves FreeHand 10 Support
- 9:35 AM
- iPodObserver - Apple Rolls out iPod touch Software 2.2 with Podcast Downloads
- 8:55 AM
- New Mac Malware Surfaces
- 8:35 AM
- Apple Releases Pro Applications Update 2008-004
- 8:00 AM
- iPO Review - Clusterball Arcade
- 7:35 AM
- iPodObserver - iTunes 8.0.2 Improves VoiceOver, More
- 6:55 AM
- iPodObserver - iPhone Software 2.2 Adds Google Street View, Podcast Downloads
The Mac Observer Reader Specials
- Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com
New MacPro Memory 800Mhz With Apple Spec Heat Sink - 2GB $72 / 4GB $104 / 8GB $204. Click to Maximize your Macs...
Mac observers can now play Party Poker for Mac as well as Mac casino games by going to MacPokerOnline.com.
RamJet Memory: Mac Pro FB-DIMMs: 2Gig kit $95, 4Gig Kit $179, 8Gig Kit $355! MacBook 2Gig Kit $78, 4Gig Kit $149! Click hereFor the latest Apple products use Ciao a comparison website to find laptops like MacBook Air. Then find the best prices on MP3 players and use our comparison tool to evaluate cell phones.
Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

