I recently stumbled across an interesting statistic whilst running through the visitor stats for the BML Creative website over the last month. For the first time ever, the top three browsers being used by all visitors to our site did not include Windows Internet Explorer.
Working in the web design industry, it’s hard to forget the trouble, strife and late nights that IE ‘quirks’ have imposed upon us over the years (the hallowed “IE6 fix” memories die hard round here!). So personally, I’m delighted to see Firefox, Chrome and Safari (all far superior browsers in every way in my humble opinion) overtaking the IE users out there. From experience, each of the companies behind these newer browsers have a far greater understanding of usability, web standards and the future of technology than Microsoft, who constantly seem to go against the grain of common sense and mass integration (do not even get me started on the appalling state of Outlook Express!!).
Internet Explorer has been the most widely used web browser since 1999, attaining a peak of about 95% usage share during 2002 and 2003. There has been a continuing downward trend in IE users due to increased market competition, which now sees them with just 23.2% of the market (as of June 2011). The dominance of Apple and Google in the booming mobile market and continuing reports of security vulnerabilities through IE in a world that is increasingly concerned with online protection, has no doubt been a major cause of its decline.
Over time, with the wider choice of free and increasingly intuitive technology that users have at their disposal, it is inevitable that only the strongest products will survive. So, does this latest discovery finally mark the beginning of the end for IE?…
Let me know your thoughts…
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Lets hope so! :-)
Would be too nice if this would count for the gross of the websites.
But as you can see on http://gs.statcounter.com/ still about 40% use IE. I guess this has to do with your blogreaders and clients who are a lot more “techy” than the usual surfer.
I would be ecstatic to see those stats for our clients in the UK, but sadly IE still retains its top stop for most. I think much of this is still down to companies that leave IE as the default browser on their Windows networks. Some savvy users will download other browsers, but many will either not feel confident doing so or its actually against their office policy, and so they stick with IE.
I really do hope so! As a web designer myself, having to sit for hours fixing sites that have been completely destroyed by Internet Explorer becomes incredibly frustrating. Time is a precious commodity in our business and as such, wasting time fixing issues, for IE6 in particular, detracts from other more valuable tasks that need to be completed.
I’ve heard that one of the main reasons IE6 doesn’t get phased out is due to the government’s avid stance on refusing to upgrade, citing the logistics of such a move would lead to complications. Sure, the logistics might be complicated at first, but the overall benefit to them in the end would be massively tangible. It might also even lead to a complete ending of the diabolical version of one of the worst browsers available.
In 2002 – 2003 there were no serious alternatives to IE except maybe Firefox.
Now that Firefox and Chrome have grown up and that people buy more and more Apple products, so mainly browse the Internet with Safari, we have 3 very competitive browsers. How could you still use IE?
Well, sometimes people don’t really has the choice. As mentioned by David, government but also companies don’t upgrade because of costs and tecnical reasons.
Surely though, the benefits to the companies and governments, in the long run, would far outweigh the difficulties they would face in upgrading? Many website designs and sites with complicated functionality aren’t supported on IE and IE6 especially. In this case, wouldn’t it be better to take that leap of faith and face the challenges of upgrading head on to, as I said, reap the benefits later on?
I agree, David – but unfortunately, our government sems to lack the foresight of many ‘developed’ countries. Our internet infrastructure is ten years behind, our rail system is a relic from the Victorian era and any time they try to make a serious move forward in IT, (NHS central database springs to mind) it ends up running billions of pounds out of budget…. I wouldn’t be at all suprised if they are still using IE6 when the rest of us are powering our computers using mind power alone! Rant over.
I just checked my stats on one of my websites, and 24% of the users are still using Internet Explorer. What I’ve noticed, is that the Chrome users are one the rise. Upon my last stat check, I had 21% Chrome and 27% using the Firefox browser. The other users were 17% Mobile (I’m also seeing more of this), 5% Safari, 3% Web Crawlers (ha!), 2% Opera, and a mere 1% Sony PS3 (say what?).
Well, I didn’t mean to break down the stats so thoroughly, but you sparked an interest with your post.
In closure, you’d think that out of all people, the folks at Microsoft would know more about these things and the functionality of the Internet therein. Cheers!
Ironically, just as IE begins becoming less popular it fixes a lot of the problems which sent it into a death spiral. IE9 is quite solid, but I agree..too little too late
Firefox is much more convenient to use than any other web browsers. This statistics doesn’t surprise me. In my opinion, more and more people will use firefox and that was supported in the recent firefox version 4 release where millions of people downloaded the program in just a week.
To be honest, I’m more surprised by the amount of usage that Safari has. I’m a dedicated chrome fanatic based purely on its aesthetics and speed, but I’ll admit, out of the box the controls are a bit funky. It takes some extensions and configuration to get it to a quick task handling browser.
I’m seeing similar things across my blog network as well. Given the WordPress has also indicated it won’t be supporting IE6, you will see this change even more!
Personally I hate using IE – it is slow and takes forever to load up new tabs. Also my google documents do not work properly in there. I prefer firefox and chrome.
It would be a dream for web designers if IE started to drop down. Slowly we’re getting there, ~I have seen a trend in my workplaces stats that IE is dropping down. Still it accounts for a third of our traffic so our design and development team continue to pull our hair out at times. But hey it’s never simple.
I prefer to browse in Safari, work in Firefox.
I’m sure it won’t die, but the beautiful fact is that MS have been given a massive wakeup call: don’t flout standards!
Yup you predicted it right. I agreed totally with your statement that other browser producing companies have better understanding of user’s needs and as far as my personal experience is considered then I would definitely go for Firefox.
Even If anytime I have to open Explorer I just can’t resist there not more than 5 minutes and then I have to go to other option available.
Its too early to say that about Internet Explorer but one thing is for sure that it has lost a lot of users after the rise of Firefox and Chrome but you cannot say anything about Microsoft.If it can make Windows 8 boot up in 8 seconds then it can weave a similar kind of magic with Internet Explorer too.
IE has been constant headaches for as far as I can remember. I remember hearing a while back that Microsoft were being made to offer alternative browsers with new installs of Windows to comply with fair trading. Only then did I feel that IE could possibly lose the majority of the internet browser market share. It is slowly on the decline looking at the analytics for many sites although I still feel it’s topping the pile.
Well, I think this will be sign for the end of IE. Google chrome, safari and firefox are way better than IE. But lets just see if what will happen with IE. Of course expect the unexpected. Maybe someday we’ll be surprised that IE is on top of most used web browser.
I will have to agree with the article, and i consider IE a weak tool for a daily use. I have been a faithful fan of firefox for many years and i love the plugins that make my work much easier!
Same story with the sites I manage, Chrome comes No:1 followed by Firefox and then IE. Come to think of it, I’m the only person I know still using it and that’s only for testing.
The fight is not over, I think. Microsoft already announced that Windows 8 will be released, we still don’t know what will Microsoft do with IE to compete more with firefox and chrome.
Since I remember Internet Explorer was slow and had problems displaying websites correctly. New versions keep coming out, but unfortunately no improvement can be seen. I have to use IE to check websites I develop but I would never use it as my main browser. I guess it will be hard for Microsoft to beat the competition at this point. Once you get bad reputation, it become the burden to carry for a long time.
Apparently, Internet Explorer will experience the fate of Netscape Navigator. It’t not pleasant to have a taste of your own medicine, but I guess that happens when you ignore the market. We are experiencing though times, and the survival of the fittest seems to be more actual than never. PS For conformity, I’m using the latest version of Chrome and I’m very satisfied. Never been a Firefox user;)
I am using all the major web browser, firefox, internet explorer, safari, opera and chrome. And personally I often use firefox and chrome. I use IE for ecommerce transaction, its InPrivate browsing. But more firefox our chrome for typical browsing. I agree, firefox and chrome are getting higher shares on browser usage, but I think IE will not die out as long as we use Windows OS, its always integrated within it.
It definitely marks the end for Internet Explorer. They were left behind by these other browsers long ago. The problem is that they never improved their services while the others were doing their best. It might be hard to regain all its users who have switched to better browsers so it might as well be their end.
The only thing keeping IE ‘up there’ IMO are corporates runnig Windows platforms.
Most just allow users one flavour of browsing. IE.
Once that status quo crumbles IE will decline rapidly.
From my own experience, Chrome wasn’t trusted from the start and IT departments know where they are with Microsoft OOTB apps.
Nope! for me, It’s still alive because many bloggers are using Internet Explorer.
Great to see Firefox hitting the lead. The only time that I use IE is to see how a website that we have designed will be viewed by the small number of people still using IE. What can be really frustrating is when a client who has commissioned a website is still using a really really old version of IE which then creates a whole load more work.
Well internet explorer won’t be killed since its the default browser of Microsoft OS. I only use internet explorer only after installing the OS (to download Firefox lol), after that I won’t use it again.
I am so ready for IE to disappear! Of course, as long as Microsoft is backing it IE is not going anywhere, but these days there are so many stronger options those that use IE simply do not know any better…
If you’re putting images on the Web, they’re available for people to download en masse and repost them as their own. So you might want to watermark them. That won’t prevent people from downloading and reposting, but at least you can identify the images as being original to you. There are plenty of ways to [...]
Internet Explorer is legging far behind Firefox and even Chrome now, however it is still used by a vast majority of people not because of choice, but for the fact that it comes pre installed on most branded computers and elderly, children or house wives use it happily. Your statistics are giving kind of wrong impression because your blog is most certainly visited by geeks and people from creative industry who hate internet explorer with passion, but it looks like heavy promotion of chrome by Google together with amazing speed will soon put Chrome top of the list.
Well, All I can say is Firefox deserve to be in no. 1. Since Chrome is not ideal to use when you want to use tools. But it terms of speed for me no. is chrome. Internet explorer is not good.
After reading this post I decided to have a look at the stats of my site and indeed IE is by far not the most popular anymore. I switched to use Firefox years ago and never changed… Right now I cant even try another browser since Im so used to firefox. Other browsers just feel unnatural to me.