StatCounter says that it’s stats are based on tracking software installed on 3 million websites and that they have a sample size of 5 billion page views a month.  I’ll post the latest snapshot from their site here as well (figure 2), and give you the breakdown of each browser’s current market share according to them.  All of these numbers will change at the link above, as I used the latest week to get these numbers and StatCounter updates them every 4 hours.

Firefox 3.5 [ 21.74%]
IE 7 [20.26%]
IE 8 [19.25%]
IE6 [15.76%]
Firefox 3.0 [9.11%]
Chrome 3.0 [4.76%]
Safari 4.0 [3.32%]
Opera 10 [1.23%]

figure 1

figure 2

I can't belive I'm defending Microsoft

The Internet chatter about the settlement that Microsoft reached with the EU that will result in Windows users being presented with a “browser choice” screen asking them which browser they would like to use is being heralded as a great victory for pretty much everybody but Microsoft, but we can’t help but wonder if the decision is actually going to change things.  There are a number of points we’d like to make that make us a little skeptical of labeling this sort of thing as progress.

First, there’s the issue of the monopolist being bullied by the little guy, which sounds like lots of fun in true David and Goliath form at first glance, but the fact that the EU was investigating Microsoft for antitrust issues (which were originally related to Media Player and had nothing to do with browsers) means that the settlement that was reached this week effects Microsoft, and only Microsoft.  There will be no similar browser choice screen for users of any other operating system (which is too bad, because I’m pretty sure there’s still a Linux distro or two out there that comes bundled with Konqueror or some such nonsense).  At least you’re allowed to install third-party browsers on Windows, which is more than we can say for most smart-phone OS’s out there.

Why is it okay for Apple to refuse Opera or Firefox a spot in their app store for some ridiculous reason about replication of features while at the same time telling Microsoft that they’re not doing enough to support the same companies?  This gets further muddied when we look at the soon to be released swarm of devices running Chrome OS who’s entire existence is based on forcing consumers to spend their whole computing experience tied to a single browser with no options for change.  When you look at all these issues together it seems that Microsoft has done more to support open software on the platform they dominate than the soon to be industry leaders in other markets.  It’s as if they’re being punished because they met everybody halfway, whereas a totally closed platform never gets scrutinized because the third-party vendors can’t get their foot in the door in the first place.  This is not to say that as these other markets become larger parts of our day to day lives that their feet won’t be held to the same fire, but why not force them to open up from day one and avoid the courtroom down the road, especially if everybody agrees that that’s going to be the end result regardless?

The issues I’m bringing up about other markets aside, I want to see third party browsers given as fair a chance as anybody else, but is this decision really going to change anything?  Under the agreement users are going to be presented with the browser choice screen via Windows Update.  So we’ve just lost everybody that has Windows update turned off.  We’ve also lost everybody who doesn’t want to be bothered with regular operating system maintenance that just clicks through all those silly update screens without reading a word of it anyways.  And you can throw out the folks who don’t really understand what a browser is or that it’s separate from the OS in the first place and just want to get to their “online thingy.”

I realize that list got a little long-winded and a slight bit silly, but read this next question carefully and answer it honestly.  Of the people that are left (the ones who are presented with the browser choice screen and take the time to read through it and make a decision), how many of them do you think didn’t know that other browsers exist and that they can download and install them for free?  That’s what I thought.