Curated by: Luigi Canali De Rossi
 


Sunday, September 5, 2004

Browser Statistics According To The W3Schools

I was not aware that the W3Schools had a public page listing its own browser statistics along with stats data for most popular screen resolutions, most popular operating systems and more.

The statistics are made with data coming from the W3C.org own servers, verified against a few other major Internet sites whose names are not publicly disclosed.

W3Schools is also crystal clear in reminding everyone that "Statistics Are Often Misleading. You cannot - as a web developer - rely only on statistics.

Global averages may not always be relevant to your web site.

Different sites attract different audiences.

Some web sites attract professional developers using professional hardware, other sites attract hobbyists using older low spec computers.

Also be aware that many stats may have an incomplete or faulty browser detection. It is quite common by many web stats report programs, not to detect new browsers like Opera and Netscape 6 or 7 from the web log."

Most useful in the W3Schools browser stats is the fact that the data collected are showed for a period of 18 consecutive months, allowing the clear and unobstructed view of the unfolding of long and medium-term trends.

If you are a passionate IT manager with a strong Windows/Internet Explorer installed base I would encourage you to give a good look at this data, before someone else in your organization does.



Related stories:
Numbers Talk: Internet Explorer Will Cease To Be The Most Popular Browser Before December 2005. Start Planning.

****Article updated on Sept 6th.
W3C was incorrectly referenced as the source of the stats.
W3Schools is not associated with the W3C Consortium.

 

 

W3C -
Reference: [via Slashdot] [ Read more ]
 
 
Readers' Comments    
2005-10-18 16:20:08

Cock Roach

Microsoft adds the network card’s ID to every document made with their office software. I consider it an invasion to people’s privacy. I just bought this laptop, and 150 EUROS of the price tag was for this software I’m about to delete, it sucks, a lot of people PIRATE software while they don’t have to, there are alternatives to breaking the law. Microsoft is not a welfare agency, sure, they are there to make money, I have nothing against free market, but, their strategy is dirty. How many people are breaking the law using Linux, Solaris or FreeBSD? ZERO!
As you can see, they encourage people to do illegal things when they impose their operating system to most people, because most people are not advised by the sales people in the computer store about the cheaper and legal alternatives.
Microsoft’s software is not bad, in fact is very good, but they are changing world history in a way that, in 2000 years from now people will realize how much more and how much better off they would have been if Microsoft’s bribes had been prosecuted.
I am really angry now that it is my 6th laptop computer I buy and forced to buy microsoft’s software, which I will be deleting in a few minutes. Now the computer ID of who made this document is out there for people to track me down. I really hate dirty business!



2005-10-18 16:06:45

Cock Roach

As long as people ignore the fact that there are superior browsers, such as Firefox, microsoft internet explorer will continue to slow down the whole world's productivity.
Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to slow the world. It is so bad, one cannot even buy a computer without being forced to buy microsoft's software, which I delete and install LINUX, it really looks like microsoft is bribing polititians around the world!



2004-10-04 19:52:25

Tinus

You should remember that W3Schools is a website for people with some sort of 'technical' background. It's clear that their visitors know more about the internet than an average user. The average user doesn't know there are alternatives to IE, and if they knew they couldn't care less.
So you might expect that these statistics are not at all realistic. For example, I have statistics for a web-shop that is not tech-centric (it sells bicycles) and those show that IE is still good for a percentage of 96%



2004-09-06 18:33:15

Bill Houle

The "W3Schools" web site is not afilliated with the W3Consortium, so the "according to the W3C" headline is incorrect. It doesn't make the statistics any less valuable though, and I too have referenced them in my IE propaganda.



 
posted by Robin Good on Sunday, September 5 2004, updated on Tuesday, May 5 2015

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

2042

 

 

Real Time Web Analytics