Safari Tops 7% Of Browser Market Share, Mac OS X On The Rise

[MacRumors]

Apple's Safari web browser has crested 7% of worldwide browser market share according to online research firm Net Applications.





While Safari's accomplishment is significant the biggest winner is clearly Mozilla's Firefox which crested 20% market share and climbed nearly an entire percentage point in one month. Meanwhile, Internet Explorer continues to bleed market share and now sits below 70%, a 1.5% decline from October 2008.

The news is similar for Microsoft and Apple's respective operating systems, with Microsoft Windows falling below 90% market share for the first time according to Net Applications and Apple's Mac OS X approaching 9%.

Net Applications gathers their market share numbers differently from sales-based statistics compiled by firms like Gartner or IDC in that they use identifying information from internet browsers. Therefore, their statistics best describe the installed internet-using population.

We collect data from the browsers of site visitors to our exclusive on-demand network of live stats customers. The data is compiled from approximately 160 million visitors per month. The information published is an aggregate of the data from this network of hosted website statistics. The site unique visitor and referral information is summarized on a monthly basis.

Article Link: Safari Tops 7% Of Browser Market Share, Mac OS X On The Rise

[flottenheimer]

I'm one of the Safari > Firefox switchers.

Nice to see that both Safari and Firefox enjoy a growing market-share. IE needs some serious competition. I'm looking forward to the day when the IE graph crosses a competing browser at the 50% market share mark.
:-)

[NeonKingKong]

pretty cool. I switched to firefox to escape the cataclysms of brushed metal but it doesn't handle tabs as well so i will be switching back to safari.

[xUKHCx]

I am guessing that this includes Mobile Safari on the iPhone/touch. Good news for those who use the iPhone/touch as perhaps developers will take more time in testing.

[dukebound85]

wow do that many people still use IE? even on windows, everyone recommends firefox

[kinless]

As a web developer, I'm just happy that IE6 is getting down near the 20% mark and falling. I'm hoping the new computers coming in as Christmas presents make that number drop even more. It won't be long before I cut off support for IE6 completely.

[Applepi]

I'm still baffled to how people are actually satisfied with IE.

[bolibic]

<rant>
You! IE users! I know you're there ! You enjoy browsing the web with your so called browsers but you don't have to suffer programming on them.

25% of the Web still uses IE6 and I guess they all are Windows XP users scared to connect their pirated windows to Windows update.

And in a while we will have to suffer IE8 "standards-my-grandma-rest-in-peace" compatible.

Whatever is better than IE. If you use Safari (in this case because the news are about safari)... thank you from a poor and humble web developer.
</rant>

[Kilamite]

Originally Posted by dukebound85

wow does that many people still use IE? even on windows, everyone recommends firefox

Computer illiterate people who buy a PC and just use it will be using IE. They make up a large sum of that I'd guess.

[amac4me]

Mac OS market share as measured by Net Applications has reached 8.87%.

[bolibic]

Originally Posted by dukebound85

wow does that many people still use IE? even on windows, everyone recommends firefox

In one of my sites:

• 99% Windows
• 1% Mac : 0.8% Safari, 0.2% Firefox

In the windows land

• 0.6% Chrome
• 0.8% Opera
• 0.8% Safari
• 24% Firefox
• 25% IE6
• 47% IE7

[xUKHCx]

Originally Posted by Kilamite

Computer illiterate people who buy a PC and just use it will be using IE. They make up a large sum of that I'd guess.

Actually I know quite a few people who can drive a PC just fine and I tried getting them on FF but they got annoyed at the slow startup speed in comparision and so went back to IE7.

[guzhogi]

In Safari (and I think FireFox as well), you can set it to "pretend" to be another browser. As in the information the browser sends to the web server that says, basically, "Hi! I'm Safari/Firefox/IE!" can be changed to another browser. Some web developers do this to see how web sites would react to different browsers. I wonder if this has anything to do w/ the increase in marketshare.

[flottenheimer]

Check the quoted stats and many more here: Market Share

[OriginalMacRat]

Safari pegs the CPU on PPC for no apparent reason.

Firefox & Camino are MUCH less CPU intensive.

[AppleMojo]

Originally Posted by NeonKingKong

pretty cool. I switched to firefox to escape the cataclysms of brushed metal but it doesn't handle tabs as well so i will be switching back to safari.

lol

Isn't FF3 brushed metal? ;-)

[memco]

Man that graph makes me weep. I wouldn't care about IE so much if it wasn't such a pain.

[Westside guy]

Originally Posted by xUKHCx

Actually I know quite a few people who can drive a PC just fine and I tried getting them on FF but they got annoyed at the slow startup speed in comparision and so went back to IE7.

They should compare the page rendering times of IE versus FF as they go, and see at what point it makes up for the longer launch time.

[flottenheimer]

Originally Posted by AppleMojo

lol
Isn't FF3 brushed metal? ;-)

Nope.

[hoolese]

Firefox is OSS, while safari is of course not and run by apple. Why couldn't apple let firefox be instead of acting all MS and trying to battle them. Its not like Apple is playing fair, either, they are not allowing other browsers on their iPhone. Microsoft was attacked for preloading IE on windows computers, apple wont even allow competition.

[FrenchKheldar]

Originally Posted by dukebound85

wow do that many people still use IE? even on windows, everyone recommends firefox

I'm still baffled somebody would use the default color scheme from Excel on Windows to write a serious article. Really, you couldn't spend 30 s to remove the ugly gray background and the pukey pink??? Some Windows users will always surprise us I guess

[Sky Blue]

Originally Posted by hoolese

Why couldn't apple let firefox be instead of acting all MS and trying to battle them.

Some people much prefer Safari? Why shouldn't Apple make their own browser?

[motulist]

Originally Posted by NeonKingKong

pretty cool. I switched to firefox to escape the cataclysms of brushed metal but it doesn't handle tabs as well so i will be switching back to safari.

Are you still on Tiger? Because in Leopard brushed metal is gone.

[BornAgainMac]

IE is a surprise. I didn't know people still use it. I suppose businesses are stuck using it since they still use Blackberries, Dells, MS Exchange, run Microsoft Access and run Windows so it is consistent.

Windows having that much marketshare is understandable since it seems like every Mac has a copy running on it either with VM or Bootcamp. Mac users love running every app under the sun possible on their Macs.

[vansouza]

How can the numbers of users of IE ever drop, by a lot, when MS requires it to update their OS? I need to find out what my sister uses, she is on XP. She is typical of users who buy a system and just use what is on it.

Count me a Safari user!!