Show your stats
I’m working on a new incarnation of the site, so I checked Google Analytics to see which browsers readers are using. I’m happy to see IE declining, but surprised that iPhone (MobileSafari) isn’t higher.
| Browser | Usage |
|---|---|
| Firefox | 41% |
| Safari | 35% |
| IE | 18% |
| Chrome | 3% |
| MobileSafari | 1% |
Out of curiosity, I checked how many of my Mac readers had upgraded to Snow Leopard:
| Version | Usage |
|---|---|
| 10.4 (Tiger) | 12% |
| 10.5 (Leopard) | 50% |
| 10.6 (Snow Leopard) | 22% |
Most Mac users have at least upgraded to Leopard. As far as screenwriting software, I haven’t noticed any problems with either Final Draft or Screenwriter under Snow Leopard, so if that’s a concern, it shouldn’t be.
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September 23rd, 2009 at 6:36 am
Not sure how I skew your stats, but I routinely visit your site in Chrome, FF, Opera, and Safari (in probably fairly even slices) depending on where I’m surfing from.
Then again, I’m probably a minuscule factor. :)
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:51 am
Why are you happy to see IE declining?
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:45 am
I also noticed IE’s share has been consistently falling on my blog too. However it’s still at 31% (with Firefox around 50%).
I would say that internet-savvy people use a modern (standard compliant, based on open source code) browser so the lower the traditional/default IE share, the most valuable the content of the website is; Internet-savvy people know how to look for information, and they value it when they find it, they’re not just surfing randomly. They follow RSS feeds and tweets. So the more the information is valuable (and updated) the smaller the share of the default-IE average users who landed there by chance.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:01 am
Lembit,
To put it mildly, IE sucks and it’s a bitch to design for because you have to add code especially for it. I’ve seen a number of websites which have included a warning that IE will not work on some parts of the site. It used to be that it was the other browsers that got the shaft, but with the decline of IE, web designers are deciding that they can exclude IE visitors, which makes their job much, much easier.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:25 am
Don’t count IE out. Most corporate intranet sites that connect to Microsoft servers are written for IE and their external facing websites are often written by the same people, especially when external forms connectivity must be had to internal applications. It’s not as bad a browser as people like to make out.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:42 am
I read your posts mostly through NetNewsWire on the iPhone, meaning that I rareley visist your site using Mobile Safari, or any other browser. I suspect that I am not alone.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:46 am
I’d guess the low iPhone numbers are largely related to RSS. Reading blogs on the iPhone without an RSS reader is actually pretty painful and unpleasant. While using RSS is still a bit of a niche activity, it makes reading blogs on the iPhone so much nicer that I’d expect it to significantly skew the stats.
September 23rd, 2009 at 9:08 am
@Lembit:
What other folks have said: There are some things that IE just botches horribly, and it’s frustrating to troubleshoot it on a Mac. Newer versions of IE are much better — but still do some things differently.
@Peter Nordstrand and @MissionPk:
Yes, I should point out that these stats ignore all RSS that isn’t clicked-through.
My hunch is that if you clicked through from NNW for iPhone would show up as MobileSafari, since that’s the web-rendering engine.
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:13 am
What I find most interesting about this is how it contradicts popularly reported stats for browser market share, which usually has IE on top. For instance, according to Wikipedia, the stats for Aug 09 are:
Internet Explorer (65.29%) Mozilla Firefox (25.69%) Safari (3.74%) Google Chrome (2.84%) Opera (1.62%) Other (0.82%)
Sooooo… people who read screenwriting blogs don’t use IE. Is that the lesson here? Who’s using IE?
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:41 am
With Final Draft you HAVE to un-register your software before installing Snow Leopard.
If you don’t (and why would you expect to?) when you restart it’ll ask to be registered again. Fine if you have one of the two permitted lives still outstanding, annoying if you run a laptop and desktop simultaneously – because you’ll have to contact the makers to restore those lives.
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:16 pm
I’m really surprised Google Chrome hasn’t taken a larger slice of the market. It’s so much better than either Firefox or IE. It’s 10x faster and much more secure.
September 24th, 2009 at 5:16 am
Mostly I’m looking for my receipt. I bought my Macbook in June, just before the new rollout, and just in time to qualify for the “upgrade for $10″ offer, which I’d like to take advantage of. :)
September 24th, 2009 at 8:53 am
@John: You still got time for screenwriting in Final Draft with all this new mac OS install, googleanalytics & wordpress blogging ? :-)))))
September 24th, 2009 at 9:02 am
@ashley: Because MSIE works fine for a vast majority of internet users I think … And most of em probly even ignore that the blue “e” on their desktop stands not for “internet” generally speaking but for a specific yet optional default software among many others that could do the job even better )
September 25th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Google Chrome is 10x faster?? Maybe I’ll give it a go. But then I heard similar things about Firefox and ended up switching back to IE. I don’t care if the Microsoft logo is on my web browser.
September 25th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Aw, Camino just shows up as Mozilla, so I never get to be special.
September 26th, 2009 at 2:42 am
The reason I use Firefox, is the, “find this word somewhere on this page” box is ever-present. On Safari you have to call it up. – So I’m actually rather mad that my Mobile-Me only syncs bookmarks of Safari to my iPhone.
Yup. — Its a cold, hard world. But survivin is what a gangsta gotta do.
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:59 am
I like Safari because it is essential.
It’s too bad that it is my first visit here. I haven’t been included in September 23 stats.