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Thank God for this development.

I don't really care what market share IE is at, as long as IE6 dies dies DIES. I'm through with wasting up to 30% more of my web development time working around IE6 bugs. Everyone here in my web programming department does a little jig with each % that IE6 goes down. We're hoping to end IE6 support (or turn it into an extra payable feature) sometime next year.

YES!

The news is only as accurate as the websites that Net Applications monitor.

Does this count mobile browsers as well, or just desktop? I'm curious how much devices like the iPhone, Blackberry, WinMobile phones, etc contribute to these numbers.

Happy Happy! Had to unfortunately get a windows laptop for work, Vista just plain sux. And vista with IE really sux. Went thru 3.5 hours of updates on a new system to only have IE stop working. I couldn't get on the web to download Firefox. After 1 or 2 hours of research, looks like Vista and WMP 11, have a serious conflict with IE after the last windows update. Had to do a system restore (another 3/4 hours), just to get IE to work and download Firefox. Vista and IE do not play well with streaming video of any kind. A few of the professional websites I need to use still actually require IE. Pages and pages of conflicts on the web between Vista, WMP and streaming. Firefox started painlessly and just plain works. No issue with streaming. I know I have to leave IE on my laptop as it is too deeply involved with Vista and the damn near daily updates from microsoft...Thanx Firefox for a quality product. Did I say Vista sux? Are you sure you want to say this? (click yes) Are you really sure? (click yes)......Vista system is worse than a babysitter...Oh look, another Windows update to screw up something else. Vista needs a key combination to set a restore point.... Thank goodness I have a Mac system at home and another MPB for my real work....

bousozoku said:

It's the trend that's important. Every other measurement site has been showing consistent loss in IE share for several years.

See, for example:
http://marketshare.h...re.aspx?qprid=1
http://www.w3schools...wsers_stats.asp

"As usual, rival browsers picked up IE’s losses."
It's a market share study. Rival browsers picked up IE's losses by definition.

What is the advantage of having a large marketshare with your web browser?

IE6 doesn't support browser standards. If it had 95% of market share, and if many web sites used features found only in IE6, then people would feel pressured to use the Microsoft operating system, so that they could use IE6. (I think that was the case a few years ago.)

But IE is becoming more and more standards-compliant. So what's the advantage to Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. of large numbers of people using their web browser?

kinless said:

I do some intranet programming at work, and we're on IE6. Recently however, some of my testers are reporting missing buttons and other quirkiness. Turns out they're (somehow) on IE8. I look at my CSS files and it seems I used some weird IE6 "tricks" years and years ago. I have removed those and now I'm crossing my fingers that there are no other surprises in store for me when it comes to .NET compatibility between IE6 and IE8. I don't do anything flashy (it's an insurance company intranet...), and I try to be standards-compliant, at least as much as the "get it done yesterday" corporate environment allows, but who knows.

What I really don't understand, what is the financial benefit from winning the browser competition. Aren't most of them free?

When Apple pushed iTunes, that's because it is the only way to access the iTunes Store and it's money tree for apple.

Apple doesn't really push webkit that seriously, why should Microsoft push IE's core engine at all?

It takes money and time to develop CORE, only to find that it keeps getting battered so badly by Webkit.

In this tough financial times, MS should just grab Webkit for free and add features of older IEs absent in Webkit. When anything went wrong, just blame Apple.

-ND

Back in the day, the benefit of having a large browser share is to push your online portal, for example Live or MSN or whatever the hell Microsoft call their online division this week. Make the default home page and most tech unsavvy people would stick with it unquestionably.
These days the majority of users will know how to change their default homepage so this is not as important anymore.
Still, being a web designer, any fall in use of IE is cause for celebration for me.

MS killed the competition (unfairly) in the 1990s and early 2000s because they were petrified that a browser would permit software suppliers to bypass the need for Windows in its entirety (e.g. Java and its run anywhere on any platform premise). If all you needed was a browser and a Java plug-in (or equivalent), then why stick with Windows and why not use something cheaper and/or better to run your browser? Obviously, with a lot of help from MS (deliberately poisoning the Java runtime and crippling the internet unless you used IE), that threat never materialised at the time.
However, look at the way things are changing again today - how many people use a web mail interface rather than a desktop email client out of choice? I personally find it bemusing but many people actually never use an email client any more. Add to that, Google docs and e.g. Google gears demonstrate that there is once again potential to have OS-independent software that runs anywhere and on any system.
MS are no doubt absolutely shitting themselves that they are losing browser share at this moment in time. Worse yet they have completely lost mind share and are actively despised by the trend-setters out there - no one with any sense looks to Microsoft to push frontiers or deliver anything radical. The only thing that they are recognised as doing is constantly playing catch up and "me too-ing" with the same embrace, extend and extinguish mentality as before.
As for Google - having their own browser promotes their own search engine, etc. and increases mindshare in favour of them. As for Apple - they don't get into a situation where they have to rely on another company to provide them with what was ultimately a second rate software from a third-rate company (MS and IE4 and IE5), which provided their users with a terrible experience online. They also get revenue from Google from every search anyone performs in Safari, as does Mozilla, and a lot of kudos for WebKit which is now one of the leading and cutting edge browser engines out there, along with Gecko.