Sam sent through the latest Trade Me browser stats (for May ‘07):
| Browser | Market Share |
|---|---|
| IE 6 | 51.3% |
| IE 7 | 29.9% |
| Firefox 2.0 | 9.2% |
| Firefox 1.5 | 3.9% |
| Safari | 2.1% |
| Firefox 1.0 | 1.1% |
| Others | 2.1% |
It’s interesting to compare these to previous months: February ‘07 and December ‘06.
After growing from nothing to 30% market share in the first few months of the year IE 7 has now totally stalled. It seems that everybody who is going to get the new version via Windows Update already has.
IE 6 is hanging in there at around 51%. Presumably all of these people have either disabled Windows Update, work for somebody who has disabled Windows Update or are using an illegitimate copy of Windows.
Perhaps, as Robert McLaw suggested in a recent post about compromised web servers, Microsoft’s policy of not patching pirated copies of Windows is actually causing them more problems than it is solving?
In other browser news, the first beta of Netscape 9 was released last week. I was surprised to find there still was a Netscape, to be honest. I’m not entirely sure why they are bothering.
We will be producing a “All of Market” technical report in the next month or so going back 2 years which will show trends in browsers, screen resolutions and OS’es which should be interesting. As TM is such a big portion of NZ browsers we should see similar results but there could be some differences between overseas vs. local traffic.
Great to see you continuing to report on these. I thought we might miss them with you changing jobs..
As long as they send me the data I’ll be happy to post it! :-)
> IE 6 is hanging in there at around 51%. Presumably all of these people have either disabled Windows Update, work for somebody who has disabled Windows Update or are using an illegitimate copy of Windows.
One group you left out is all the 98/Me/2000 users which will never get IE7. I’d guess that’s a reasonable chunk of the 51%, but you guys have the OS stats to prove it.
Or the people that haven’t yet allowed SP2 for XP to dribble down her 56k modem like my wife’s Aunt.
She is only online about 3 hours a month ;)
http://www.nzdsl.co.nz/Article460.phtml
The assertion that Microsoft doesn’t patch pirated copies of Windows is incorrect:
http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/FAQ.aspx?displaylang=en&sGuid=f977d9b9-46e3-4b41-b9cb-e2f9a5ffb854
Q: Will users of non-genuine Windows be blocked from receiving security updates?
A: No. Regardless of genuine status, users will not be denied access to critical security updates. Users who have not validated their computers as genuine, however, will not be able to install many updates, including Internet Explorer 7.0 and Windows Defender. Microsoft strongly recommends that users of non-genuine systems correct their problem immediately.
I did a presentation to a number of SeniorNet people earlier today and there was quite a high correlation between people using dialup and IE6 so I suspect Nigel’s comments above might not be too far shy of the mark.
Brett Roberts
Microsoft NZ
PS: why does this site leave my details (including the email address which “will not be published”) populated in the reply fields after I hit the “submit” button ?
Hi Brett,
Thanks for your comments.
However, by that logic you are not treating IE7 as a “critical security update”. That seems to contradict much of your marketing, which focuses on the security improvements.
Also, what percentage of *genuine* XP users still don’t have SP2 (which as I understand it is also a prerequisite for IE7)? I can’t imagine *any* dial-up user would have been able to download that update.
Is there any plan to help these people make the transition to IE7, which I think most people would agree is a much better browser on many fronts (usability, security, etc)? Or, are they stuck on IE6 until they buy a new PC?
Cheers,
Rowan.
Good point re IE7 for non-genuine Windows users. There was a lot of debate about this internally when IE7 launched and, from a personal standpoint, I still run hot and cold on the topic. It’s a binary decision though and those non-genuine users who are worried about not having access to IE7 know exactly what they need to do to remedy the situation.
As regards SP2 via dialup, this isn’t as hard as you might think. The first thing the SP2 update does is install a service called BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) which was specifically designed to handle SP2 coming down in more than one piece. I have talked to many people who have successfully downloaded SP2 over a dialup connection so I know it works. We also distributed SP2 on CD’s and delivered tens of thousands of them into NZ via magazine covers and directly to users via courier.
Given the above, I suspect that those users not on SP2 now have made the deliberate decision, for whatever reason, to stick with what they’ve got. Scary but true.
Brett Roberts
Microsoft NZ
And in more browser news apple have released safari 3 which can run on windows and claims that it can load a page up to twice as fast as internet explorer 7 – http://www.apple.com/safari/
Robert has posted an update:
“UPDATE: The WGA team contacted me to let me know that the policy I quoted was from July of 2005 and is out of date. Microsoft’s policy is, in fact, to allow for critical patches to be downloaded via Automatic Updates, regardless of a machine’s license state. Since that is the case, I would assume that the pirates have shut AU off on these machines so they don’t report back to Microsoft. Can’t fault Microsoft for that.”
Hey Rowan,
Is it possible you could publish the %age of people with JavaScript disabled? I am yet to find a reliable source on this.
Jeremy
I think it’s a catch 22. Microsoft’s responsibility with security starts with vulnerabilities in their software not being patched up exactly on those computers which are more susceptible to be hijacked.
Not deploying IE 7 automatically may be creating a problem greater than simply sending it down “the tubes”.
People use pirated software sometime for ignorance. Based on the e-mails I sometimes receive, try explaining to people that they should patch their computer to increase security, when they can’t distinguish geekzone.co.nz from vodafone.co.nz…