Internet Explorer market share plummets
Microsoft's Internet Explorer continues to lose ground to rival browsers, but holds on to its majority overall.
According to research carried out by Net Applications - reported over on ConceivablyTech - Internet Explorer's market spare dropped to a bare majority of 59.95 percent in April - around the same share as Microsoft enjoyed back in 1999 when it launched Internet Explorer 4.
Internet Explorer's loss translates, inevitably, into gains for other browsers - and the biggest winner according to Net Applications' figures is Google's Chrome. While still a minority browser - with just 6.73 percent of the market - Google's browser continues to increase in popularity, maintaining its double-digit growth figures.
Net Applications also shows Firefox gaining ground with 24.59 percent of the browser market - a growth of 0.07 percent in April, although still a significant dip on its height of 24.72 percent in November 2009.
While there are some questions as to the overall accuracy of Net Applications' figures - rival market watcher StatCounter puts Internet Explorer's market share as low as 51.42 percent, with rival browsers figures increased accordingly - one thing is agreed upon: users are continuing to flock away from Microsoft's default web browser.
Whether the company can reverse this trend with the up-coming Internet Explorer 9 - pegged to include DirectX acceleration and HTML 5 support - remains to be seen.
Do you understand why Internet Explorer continues to lose market share, and is there anything that Microsoft can do about it? What's your browser of choice for day-to-day use? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
Previous Article
54 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyI agree! :D Now buying some shares in Firefox when they started out would have been a smart investment;)
Also, what out-dated tech are you talking about?
I read all the test conclusions about the speed improvement of chrome like everyone else did when it came out, but was disappointed to find it slower than firefox in general use, contrary to the test results.
I finally figured out why only a few months ago when I went back to chrome to see if it had improved at all. Chrome, being nice and lightweight due to the lack of add-ons is supposed to be nice and quick. My firefox installation has a shed-load of addons (and yes, the official unit of measurement for quantities of addons is sheds... or at least it should be) but because one of those is an ad-blocker, any ad-infested pages (the majority of the internet) will load significantly faster in firefox, the "big, heavy & slow browser", as my chrome-loving (that sounds like some sort of euphemism...) friends call it. I do like a bit of irony.
I'm also reliably informed that there won't be an ad-blocker officially supported by chrome because google makes so much cash from its advertising - it wouldn't really make sense for them to allow it in their own browser.
And yes, as crazyceo pointed out, all those who've bought windows 7 in the EU have a lovely IE-free OS by default, and I would imagine most have the sense to ask someone (or just google) which browser to get, if they don't already have an opinion. I'd actually be interested to see statistics for the browser market share for windows 7 users in the EU only. I hereby predict a pitiful result for microsoft.
Yslen
ps. Yes, most of that comment was pointless, but I'm testing a new keyboard, and there's something so depressing about typing "hello my name is <insert name here>" in microsoft word over and over.
Shouldn't it be thank?
This is just about the only thing EU has done that I agree with...
Then again the other things they do aren't related to me, so I pretty much only know that the EU has done this... Other than the fiasco about Greece.
IE8 is perfectly fine to use and is excellent in every way. I don't need any "ADWARE" chrome or unstable firefox.
Really, this drop is really not surprising, IE is becoming increasingly irrelevant and has been doing so for the past few years. Safari is no different.
Yours in anti-MS Plasma,
Star*Dagger
SRWare Iron for your non "ADWARE" Chrome needs.
Firefox unstable? :|:|:|
I don't know, I found the panel (that came up on my winXP machine???) strange. It suggests if you choose a different browser it would remove IE entirely.
Also, it didn't recognise I had already installed a different browser, and dindn't want to reinstall a second firefox, thank you.
I've got IE and FF installed next to each other, but only use FF.
Some websites, usually "official" ones using forms insist on IE, so very rarely i need it.
Also intersting, IE6 still has between 20 and 10% share.
Mostly companies, I guess, I know mine uses it.
So why shouldn't they use it? really, I need to know as I haven't heard a valid excuse yet!
Hardcore Internet Explorer Wow, never heard of that before!
I don't know, but
[sarcasm]
1) IE is very secure. The most secure of all - it's unsurpassed in terms of security!
2) IE is blazing fast! It annihilates all other browsers in terms of sheer speed. The Trident engine pretty much spears Gecko, Webkit and Presto.
3) IE supports anything and everything, unlike others, which supports much much less.
4) IE is the most efficient browser out of all.
5) IE is the most stable of all browsers.
[/sarcasm]
still use firefox but the 3.6+ builds are not as good as the old 3.5 builds and they took out the nice themes support- it's only a image you can embed in the header now, no more icons and scroll bar colors
I'd switch to IE 64 bit in a second if flash would make a 64 bit plugin for it
When IE9 officially get's released, I'll more onto that and be content with my browsing life.
Also not a fan of using Ad blocking software, since just about every website out there relies on the revenue ads create, including bit-tech. If everyone started using an adblock plugin, do you think the advertisers would bother?
rickysio, thanks for that I already knew it was good but you've expanded my knowledge even more.
wow... I like microsoft products, but that is really very close minded, kind of cutting off you nose to spite your face there buddy.
Having said that, though, I stick with firefox.
I find that hard to believe. Clearly 60% of computer users around the world are ignorant enough to still use IE, and you don't know any of them? Personally, everyone I know over the age of 25 still uses IE or has done previous to me persuading them to use something else.
I don't know anyone ignorant enough to think IE is so terrible that no one in their right mind could actually use it, oh wait ya I do hes called Stardagger.
64bit flash support would bee nice, though as it is IE 64bit is basically IE with ad block :D
I count no less than fourteen adblockers on the Chrome Extensions page. That might not be as good as 'officially supported' but since most of them use exactly the same technique and lists as FF I'll settle for it. For anyone worrying about depriving deserving sites of revenue, consider the 'whitelist' (mine includes all URLs ending 'bit-tech.net', for example).
Valid
excusesreasons provided courtesy of the German Government, the French Government, the Australian Government, the New York Times etc etc ad nauseam. For a brief summary, IE is insecure, lazily coded, slow to respond to exploits and just slow. Those problems are compounded by the fact that IE is the default browser of people who do not understand computers; this vulnerable userbase means that IE is also the premier browser target of hacking, virii, and other internet nasties. It's not just most of the world's Governments and lots of the world's internet journalists saying that, personal experience also plays a part. I use Chrome for both my Mac and my 7 desktop (synchronised bookmarks and the like are useful) and loading IE on the thankfully rare occasions I am forced to use it takes in excess of 30 seconds, as opposed to click-open for Chrome.+1. Whole family now uses Chrome, and the number of "Help, the internet doesn't work" calls has decreased exponentially.
As for IE, I don't use it much at home, but at the office it is all we focus on supporting for our internal apps. Another browser in the office mix with 500 odd problematic employees would just drive me mad. Also simpler to control from AD group policy.
I'm fairly happy with FF for my own office and home PC, but I agree it'd be nicer if it felt like it fitted in with my Win7. That's the only thing really since I tend to look at the pages it is displaying rather than its window borders.
"Valid excuses reasons provided courtesy of the German Government, the French Government, the Australian Government, the New York Times etc etc ad nauseam. For a brief summary, IE is insecure, lazily coded, slow to respond to exploits and just slow. Those problems are compounded by the fact that IE is the default browser of people who do not understand computers; this vulnerable userbase means that IE is also the premier browser target of hacking, virii, and other internet nasties. It's not just most of the world's Governments and lots of the world's internet journalists saying that, personal experience also plays a part. I use Chrome for both my Mac and my 7 desktop (synchronised bookmarks and the like are useful) and loading IE on the thankfully rare occasions I am forced to use it takes in excess of 30 seconds, as opposed to click-open for Chrome."
How can you call that a valid reason when the same bodies instigated the questionable charges over Microsoft including their own browser in their own operating system. I would also ignore the governments from those countries who also HAVE issued warnings against Firefox AND Google! but let's ignore them like you have.
Google is the biggest adware slugfest on the market today and who said I had blinker vision?
As completely irrelevant as that is to this particular discussion - which is about why IE's share is declining, not about whether it's anticompetitive to ship your own browser with your own operating system, I happen to agree that it's stupid to force Microsoft to advertise other people's browsers in Windows. That doesn't, however, change the fact that since the brower choice screen was implemented the desertion of IE by Windows users has surged from a trickle to a flood, which is yet more evidence that many people don't really like IE. In addition, pointing out that this was forced upon Microsoft is merely name-calling to discredit the Government agencies validly publicising IE's well-known flaws. It's also wrong, because technically it was a court, not these cyber-police, that ordered the browser screen upon Microsoft.
As far as I can see, there has been only one Governmental alert about FireFox, from Germany, which was patched by the release of an entirely new revision of FF. I'm not saying that other browsers are immune to security flaws, I'm just pointing out that IE has such a constant wide and gaping variety that usually are picked up not by MS' internal security testers but instead by external forces. Anyway, Governments have only made one warning about Chrome - again, from the Germans - and that wasn't even a security vulnerability, it was a warning that using Chrome would allow Google to monitor your internet habits. Much as they do if you use, er, Google. To continue on that theme;
:?
Google's business is advertising. What were you expecting, exactly? In return for trying to sell you things, you get a free search engine, free e-mail, calendar, translation, mapping, StreetView and countless other services, and a free browser. That might not sound like a fair deal to you, but you're going to get it if you use Google at all, not just if you use their browser. Your ISP is doing much the same thing. In addition, there's no ads in-browser, and even better, like any other browser, Chrome allows you to install Ad-Block. So there's no ads. Which invalidates your entire argument. By contrast, Microsoft charge you up front for IE; as in, you must pay some hundreds of dollars for the OS with which it is compatible. Free + adverts or expensive + no adverts, the choice is yours. Finally, I'd also like to dispute the use of the word 'slugfest' because it implies 'slow' and really when when I think 'slow' I think 'IE.'
Heh heh. Egg + face. When did chrome extensions appear anyway? There was me thinking there weren't any (there actually weren't the last couple of times I tried chrome). I'll install on one of those and give it another shot, I suppose.
As far as I know, the companies that advertise pay per redirect through the ad? So if you never click on banners anyway, it makes no difference if you block the ads. That's definitely the way some sites do it, as I've seen it explained, though I don't know if it's universally true.
I'm really picky with my browsers, as I am with most things I use on my pc. I have firefox customised with some very specific addons I've hard a hard time finding equivalents for elsewhere, meanwhile I also have addons giving me the key features of other browsers within firefox (fast dial etc). I don't see myself moving to another browser any time soon - and if I did, it would be chrome, not internet explorer.
Just install a windows 7 skin? There are loads of them out there. <Resists temptation to say over 9000>.
If I see an Offender, I educate him (or her) and then their erroneous ways are healed.
REPENT IE HERETICS!!! REPENT!
I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or you're really that much of a Microsoft fanboy.
He generally lives in my ignore list but i've been using the front page recently instead of the forums so i've seen the crap he types.
The UK has consistently made the wrong decisions for well over 100 years, the only two good ones that stand out are electing Churchill and joining the EU (which is still half-arsed with keeping the pound).
I think you are a troll, so I won't say much more, other than be honest with yourself and try FF or one of the others, educate yourself and the choice will be clear, FF and the Euro!
There's a thread on this on BiT somewhere recent - apparently this and many other sites rely on the advert actually being shown, so if it ain't, the site doesn't get paid. That put BiT and a few others on the whitelist (to which the block ain't applied); indeed, the only people I purposely block are the 'Cheezburger Network' and I'll continue to do so until they stop trying to ruin humour.
Uh;
Choice = good. If you've tried the others and prefer IE, more power to you. On the other hand, expect your opinions to be robustly contested by people hiding behind a veil of anonymity on the internet. ;)
I take it you aren't from the UK so you just don't understand the problem between the UK and EU. I'm not going to knock you for that. People in mainland Europe embrace the EU, people in the UK don't and it will be very difficult to get to the same level of respect for it. However, FF is NOT the answer.
@PureSilver
Those figures are upto date and accurate. Take from that what you will.
Yes, that anonymity thing. We all saw what Jay and Silent Bob did at the end of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back!
On all my school's PC's, there is a reason why almost every computer has Firefox Portable, Chrome Portable, Opera Portable, etc splattered all over the desktop, while IE whimpers in a corner.
The sysadmins approve, apparently, since they're not insane, or mentally incapable...
Agreed! I'm surprised not more people are taking up google chrome and using it! It is a brilliant browser if like me you don't really use add ins :D
Extension support
bookmark syncing within the browser
I only use IE at work now for some IE only applications
Otherwise its google chrome all the way
Scroll to the bottom...IE does very badly in Acid 3 - Webkit (Safari & Chrome) & Firefox do much better.