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Is Java on browsers so widespread?

Don't know how accurate they are, but some say more than 40% of the computers connected to internet have Java plugin.

This is how they get their data.

And I'd rather go by the stats of 28,000,000 unique visitors than 250,000 thousand.

And flash is near death anyway.

Flash has ~95% penetration. Saying it's dead is like saying the Empire State Building is three feet tall.

"Windows is slowly losing relevance" - by peppepz (1311345) on Wednesday August 08, @02:22AM (#40915185)

#1 Most Used/Biggest Marketshare on PC Desktops + Servers combined, & it's "losing relevance"? Then MacOS X + Linux never had it @ all, just based on the numbers, & don't argue with me - as the saying goes, "argue with the numbers": See here, "Read 'em & weep" -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

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Parent said "Windows is slowly losing relevance", the article you refer to shows current market share of operating systems, not change in time, so here are some relevant numbers you can argue with.
From September 2008 to April 2012:
Windows: 90.87% -> 84.13%
Mac: 8.69% -> 14.80%
Linux: 0.41% -> 0.86%

So it seems it is true that Windows is slowly losing relevance. In the same period of time Linux doubled its usage. And I suspect they are not taking into account mobile devices such as cellphones and tablets.

I've used AND created OpenGL screensavers for Windows since Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003 - based on the OpenGL 2.1 standard

If your screensavers look anything like your posts, I'm not interested.

See here -> http://www.statowl.com/operating_system_market_share.php (or even other sites showing similar data/stats) - Windows rules the roost for PC's &/or Servers combined, hands-down, no questions asked... period.

"70%" is only according to microsoft, more reliable sources put it at about 60% (e.g. http://www.statowl.com/plugin_overview.php).

Unless Linux runs 89% of the web with just 21.2% of the servers I'd say your math was a little off friend. Desktops are even more bleak with half of a single percent for Linux while Apple has gone up to nearly 12%.

The simple fact is if you want to gain REAL share, I mean "change the world get the hardware OEMs to listen to you" kind of momentum, then you are gonna need your very own Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. You're gonna need someone to put their foot down and say "the buck stops here" and pull this big mess where everyone is scratching their own itch into a cohesive experience with concrete guidelines, especially when it comes to UI, behavior, quality, documentation, and ease of use.

Will that man be Mark Shuttleworth? I don't know but what I DO know is he has done more to get Linux out of the "CLI heavy OS for basement nerds and CS grads" mindset and into the "Linux for humans" goals. Whether he can actually pull it off while staying in the community is the question and I personally believe he'll just have to give the community the finger and fork Ubuntu away from traditional Linux, simply because making Linux friendly to the masses WILL require changes that the CLI heavy nerds and server admins won't care for one damned bit.

As TFA shows Canonical might as well fork the whole smash away from Linux, because nobody is gonna be happy with them anyway. Everyone complains they don't send upstream but the guys upstream don't want to go the way Ubuntu is going so it is just pissing in the wind anyway. But Linux has had fifteen years to get people to switch using the CLI heavy nerd way and what has it gotten you? 22% of the server and falling, and so low on the desktop it is literally below the margin for error. If Linux is gonna truly become a "third way" for the masses, to be looked at and treated as an equal to OSX and Windows 7, then changes have to be made and Shuttleworth seems ready to make those changes.

The question is whether he can make those changes without pissing off the "community" and stepping on too many toes, and I would argue he simply can't. Canonical would be better off to just ignore the community and slowly but surely fork the thing away from them and perhaps by doing so actually give us a "Linux for humans" that "just works" for the average man out there. It still has a hell of a long ways to go IMHO, but it looks to me with Wayland and Unity the man is seriously trying.

All the popular ones like Netflix? Oh wait, no it doesn't and as I pointed out Janus has been here OVER five years and all FOSS "hackers" have to show for it is a giant FAIL next to their score. Next!

BTW you want to see "the ultimate future" of FOSS? Do you? It is kinda sad but you can see the end result today of the "never compromise, down with the great Satan!" holy war pushed by RMS. All you have to do is look up what "PC" RMS uses to see how FOSS will ultimately end...in case you don't know he is stuck on a Loongson "netbook" that only supports a teeny tiny niche of software, no flash, no web video, hell I bet the man can't even listen to music unless it is a specially crafted Vorbis file, and frankly the machine is probably illegal in the west due to the fact the Chinese incorporated x86 instructions into their ARM chip without a license.

And your big "savior" is Android? BWA HA HA HA! You ever see "Pirates of silicon valley"? Remember the scene where Jobs is rallying against IBM and his engineer is pointing to the IBM video and to Gates, who is about to fuck him raw? Well guess what? Notice anything...funny...about Android? Like how Google refuses to allow ANY GPL V3 code into DroidOS? Why do you think that is? It is because Google is gonna buttfuck FOSS by pulling the TiVo trick which they can't do if they allow GPL V3, that's why! Your "savior" is gonna be about as useful to FOSS as TiVo! It is SOOOO funny!

As for Janus now who is spreading FUD? In case you haven't heard The EU busted MSFT and made them open their protocols so all the Linux foundation would have to do is ask for a Janus binary blob (and Get Linus to quit acting like an ass and support a stable driver API) and the EU would make MSFT cough one up or drop the banhammer on them to the tune of a couple of hundred million.

And again you go "la la la" and refuse to accept reality. In reality The ONLY reason the music companies allowed MP3 is because Apple has a monopoly with iTunes which means there was simply no way to offer DRM, since Apple refuses to license Fairplay and doesn't support Janus on WMA. Which means if they want Amazon and other music retailers to compete with Apple it HAS to work on an iPod and frankly the ONLY format that fit that bill was either MP3 or WAV, so it wasn't like they had a choice.

Now compare that to video where the studios have gone out of their way to ensure that Apple doesn't get squat since they don't want a repeat of the music debacle where Apple could pretty much dictate terms and could kill an artists sales by simply burying their ads to the back of iTunes, and where the X360 owns a significant share of the living room. Here you will simply never see a repeat of MP3 because MSFT has licensed Janus liberally, with the X360, PS3, Wii, and numerous set top boxes supporting Netflix and by extension Janus DRM. Google tried to force the issue and got the banhammer dropped on them making Google TV worthless when compared to even CCC (Cheapo Chinese Crap) set top box, so frankly this battle is over, like Mp3 VS Vorbis.

But in the end thanks to the militants wing of FOSS the future of FOSS is bleak with corps like Google "TiVo Tricking" away your four freedoms on one side (and which is being assisted by Linus who refuses to go GPL V3) and online DRM Video being "the killer app" which will ensure that not a single B&M will carry your product. Not Walmart not Best Buy not a single one shall be had. In the end without the ability to compromise FOSS will simply stay locked into an increasingly small web server niche because thanks to t

This is a linux distro report based on real usage - not search trends. You can even drill down to specific distro versions.

This is a linux distro report based on real usage - not search trends. You can even drill down to specific distro versions.

I don't think they are his stats.

They aren't. For comparison: Silverlight Plugin Version Support

This report is updated monthly and displays linux distro market share stats. However, it mostly reports on desktop usage - not server usage.

why can't you just use cpp? It will work on all linuxes without much modification. And who gives a fuck about windows.

The approx 90% of computers that run Windows would care. Catering to an OS with only 1% of the market share like Linux is suicide. http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8 http://www.statowl.com/operating_system_market_share_trend.php

Comparing this report (which shows flash plugin usage within chrome users) to this report (which shows general flash plugin usage) - it seems only 2% of chrome users have no flash plugin compared to 3.9% across all browsers.

Depending on how you look at it, this is either a sign chrome users don't need additional help getting flash installed or that google is simply catering to their users who have a special affinity for the flash plugin - you decide.

My guess would be this is some special strategic bond between Adobe and Google to further push flash since silverlight is by far the fastest growing plugin technology - but that growth is partially tied to the growth of Windows 7 which comes with silverlight.

Comparing this report (which shows flash plugin usage within chrome users) to this report (which shows general flash plugin usage) - it seems only 2% of chrome users have no flash plugin compared to 3.9% across all browsers.

Depending on how you look at it, this is either a sign chrome users don't need additional help getting flash installed or that google is simply catering to their users who have a special affinity for the flash plugin - you decide.

My guess would be this is some special strategic bond between Adobe and Google to further push flash since silverlight is by far the fastest growing plugin technology - but that growth is partially tied to the growth of Windows 7 which comes with silverlight.

Comparing this report (which shows flash plugin usage within chrome users) to this report (which shows general flash plugin usage) - it seems only 2% of chrome users have no flash plugin compared to 3.9% across all browsers.

Depending on how you look at it, this is either a sign chrome users don't need additional help getting flash installed or that google is simply catering to their users who have a special affinity for the flash plugin - you decide.

My guess would be this is some special strategic bond between Adobe and Google to further push flash since silverlight is by far the fastest growing plugin technology - but that growth is partially tied to the growth of Windows 7 which comes with silverlight.

what happened to applets?
They are usable now, but everyone still thinks they are in a sorry state of ca 1997.

The problem with applets is you can't rely on anyone to have a recent version of Java, or indeed any version of Java at all. I worked on a site that used applets for user interface purposes back in the early 2000s. In about 2005, the company that owned it sold the site, and the buyer asked us to help redevelop it. They had done some stats-gathering with their existing customers, and found only about 60% of them had a recent enough Java (1.2) to run the applet we had written. About 25% had no Java installation at all, because MS's Java was removed when XP SP2 was released.

Looking at the situation currently, it does seem to be improving (these stats suggest it's now < 20% who don't have it installed), but there's still a significant base that don't have Java, and with it being a ~80MB download, it's more than you can ask people to get if they want to use your site.

Google gets many magnitudes more search query data...

One is many for you? http://marketshare.hitslink.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=4 http://www.statowl.com/search_engine_market_share.php

If IE6 weren't from Microsoft, but still had the same endemic big security problems, being actively exploited from everywhere, not interest in fixes from the making company and being used still by 10-20% of internet, specially in the corporate world, probably Google would phase out the support anyway.

Regarding Microsoft/Bing, Firefox never had so big holes, and so actively exploited, like IE6. And anyway old versions have very low usage, and odds are high that that users dont visit bing (most of its niceties are based on silverlight, they are excluding browsers/OS already)

Also matter how much used is an old, insecure version, compared with another "players" of internet, like other browsers versions, or even old flash player versions. Only in IE the old, insecure and unmaintained version is widely used, in the others the most used versions are the latest or close enough, and without very big vulnerabilities anyway (ok, maybe with the exception of flash)

In case anyone is curious here is the google gears version usage breakdown.

Makes me wonder how much if this is due to people switching from Google vs just buying a new PC (at least when I set up my Dad's PC it did). Bing market share growth follows a very similar trend to Windows 7 market share growth.

Makes me wonder how much if this is due to people switching from Google vs just buying a new PC (at least when I set up my Dad's PC it did). Bing market share growth follows a very similar trend to Windows 7 market share growth.

Based on this growth trend, I'd say Silverlight has a future still.

SVG adoption needs Microsoft to gain critical mass. 66.43% SVG figure is based on December StatOwl.com figures.

Sounds like a problem with that box... have you tried the procedures mentioned here?

I admit the .NET Framework is bigger and more complicated than VBRUN600.DLL, but installation problems like that are rare. The framework is already installed on something like 90% of PCs, and nearly every box sold in the past few years will be able to run .NET 2.0 apps.

A few others have made that point and I remember how installing Debian, Gentoo and Suse was around then. It wasn't pretty, but XP, with all of it's manufacturer's support, wasn't doing a great job.

Installing Linux in 2001, you were lucky if the damned thing even booted. I remember, for example, being particularly pissed at an install of RedHat 6.2 (IIRC) which had a SoundBlaster 128 on the *supported hardware* list, and yet when it booted? No sound. Not a peep. So even if XP was hard to install by 2001 standards, at least it didn't lie to users about hardware support.

If you're going to compare to a modern version of Linux, use a modern version of Windows. Apples to apples. Otherwise, you're just slathering FUD all over this site already overflowing with FUD.

My point, however, is that I still wonder how many users switch, how they do it and what their reasons are. If you say that average users don't install OS'es, then either somenone else does it for them or they don't switch.

Duh.

The latter would imply that the percentage netbooks sold with Linux on it would be a fair indicator of de facto market share.

All things being equal, yes.

Except you're missing the point that, occasionally, it's a better deal to buy the XP/Windows 7 netbook and then wipe the drive and install Linux over it. For example, if you want a MSI Wind model, you're better off buying the Windows version *even if you want Linux*, since it has a full hardware and costs the same. That said, that disclaimer also applies to full laptops, and occasionally desktops as well.

The real problem is that Linux users are such privacy kooks, there's no way to make a distro ping a server and say "hey, this guy just installed Ubuntu!" The only half-decent way to get Linux numbers is to go by browser share, and by that metric Linux has an embarrassingly small marketshare. (Currently less than 0.5%, according to StatOwl. http://statowl.com/operating_system_market_share_trend.php?1=1&timeframe=last_6&interval=month&chart_id=13&fltr_br=&fltr_os=&fltr_se=&fltr_cn=&timeframe=last_12 )

Maybe there are a ton of Linux users who don't use the web. I dunno.

By your theory it would be easy for another free operating system to come along with a binary drivers interface, and outperform Linux' market share easily, since Linux can not be used legally with binary drivers.

Only because Linux driver developers pig-headedly refuse to create a stable API for driver development. If they did that (which is legal under the GPL), then you could legally run any driver with Linux, binary or not.

They don't because they've all been brainwashed into thinking that "free" has a very specific meaning which has absolutely nothing to do with developer or user freedom.

That said, you're probably right. I'd love to see somebody try it.

With more and more non-geek people installing, using and talking about Linux systems like Ubuntu, I don't think Linux is doing particularly bad right now.

I love phrases like "more and more" because they mean absolutely nothing. All the solid numbers I've seen have shown a pretty damned steady rate of Linux usage-- there's been no explosion of users, *despite* easier-to-use distros like Ubuntu being available now.

This site:
http://statowl.com/operating_system_market_share_trend.php?1=1&timeframe=last_6&interval=month&chart_id=13&fltr_br=&fltr_os=&fltr_se=&fltr_cn=&timeframe=last_12
actually shows a significant *decrease* in Linux installs in the last year.

The GUI building tools could be better in Linux,

ALL the building tools in Linux could be better. The next time I see someone brag about how great Linux is as a development platform, then open up GDB, I'm going to pop them in the nose. Seriously, it's like stockholm syndrome at this point...

Even non-Linux open source technologies are nightmares to develop for. Try finding a non-asstastic ad-hoc query tool for MySQL. Try to find an OLAP solution for MySQL-- do they even exist?

and Java should be better integrated.

Java is dead on the desktop; it should be used as a server technology only, and Linux already has too much server focus and not enough desktop focus.

Unless you're seriously suggesting building desktop apps in Java, which is a terrible idea.

According to StatOwl.com, Bing has around 4% market share. However, it should be noted that they measure traffic driven to actual sites as a result of using search engines for their metrics. So if we assume both ComScore and StatOwl are correct in their reported data. Then around 6% of the new Bing traffic can't seem to find what they are looking for with Bing.

According to StatOwl.com, Bing has around 4% market share. However, it should be noted that they measure traffic driven to actual sites as a result of using search engines for their metrics. So if we assume both ComScore and StatOwl are correct in their reported data. Then around 6% of the new Bing traffic can't seem to find what they are looking for with Bing.

Ok, I just compiled some stats on Shockwave version plugin distribution using roughly 30 million unique data points from July 1 of this year until about a week ago - here is roughly the distribution (includes IE/FF/etc. - all major browsers):

Not installed => 67.54%
11,0,0,0 => 2.86%
10,2,0,0 => 2.84%
10,1,0,0 => 2.59%
11,0,0,465 => 2.41%
11,5,0,0 => 2.05%
11,5,1,601 => 1.90%
8,5,1,0 => 1.75%
10,1,4,0 => 1.73%
11,0,0,429 => 1.58%
11,0,3,472 => 1.56%
10,1,1,0 => 1.53%
11,5,0,596 => 1.46%
11,5,0,600 => 1.38%
11,0,3,471 => 1.35%
11,5,0,595 => 1.21%
11,0,0,458 => 0.93%
10,3,0,0 => 0.78%
11,0,3,470 => 0.66%
8,0,0,0 => 0.43%
10,1,3,0 => 0.37%
8,5,0,0 => 0.32%
11,0,3,0 => 0.23%
10,0,0,0 => 0.16%
10,0,1,0 => 0.11%
7,0,0,0 => 0.10%
11,5,1,0 => 0.08%
10,4,0,0 => 0.04%
6,0,0,0 => 0.03%

What is potentially troubling is that there does not appear to be much in the way of upgrade movement in Shockwave installs. So if "Adobe Shockwave Player versions prior to 11.5.2.602" are truly at risk, we are talking about 30% of web users roughly.

I will publish a more in-depth report later today here: http://www.statowl.com/ in the plugin section. I have been neglecting that site anyways - time to update the stats - the past three month are absent - sigh....

Ok, I just compiled some stats on Shockwave version plugin distribution using roughly 30 million unique data points from July 1 of this year until about a week ago - here is roughly the distribution (includes IE/FF/etc. - all major browsers):

Not installed => 67.54%
11,0,0,0 => 2.86%
10,2,0,0 => 2.84%
10,1,0,0 => 2.59%
11,0,0,465 => 2.41%
11,5,0,0 => 2.05%
11,5,1,601 => 1.90%
8,5,1,0 => 1.75%
10,1,4,0 => 1.73%
11,0,0,429 => 1.58%
11,0,3,472 => 1.56%
10,1,1,0 => 1.53%
11,5,0,596 => 1.46%
11,5,0,600 => 1.38%
11,0,3,471 => 1.35%
11,5,0,595 => 1.21%
11,0,0,458 => 0.93%
10,3,0,0 => 0.78%
11,0,3,470 => 0.66%
8,0,0,0 => 0.43%
10,1,3,0 => 0.37%
8,5,0,0 => 0.32%
11,0,3,0 => 0.23%
10,0,0,0 => 0.16%
10,0,1,0 => 0.11%
7,0,0,0 => 0.10%
11,5,1,0 => 0.08%
10,4,0,0 => 0.04%
6,0,0,0 => 0.03%

What is potentially troubling is that there does not appear to be much in the way of upgrade movement in Shockwave installs. So if "Adobe Shockwave Player versions prior to 11.5.2.602" are truly at risk, we are talking about 30% of web users roughly.

I will publish a more in-depth report later today here: http://www.statowl.com/ in the plugin section. I have been neglecting that site anyways - time to update the stats - the past three month are absent - sigh....

This graph shows market share trends for relevant browser versions. Of course, I REALLY wish it was "in the single digits".

The StatOwl.com guys have their reports updated for this month. I know one of the guys who runs it and he mentioned they have been working on a bunch of mobile reports to handle just the mobile data.

According to the corporate statistics linked in the summary, IE6 just overtook IE7.

Now that is truly retarded. And retarding even more as we speak.

Yeah - looking at the stat owl site mentioned above, silverlight is nowhere near flash in overall usage. Not sure why they insist on trying to get into this market other then that it is Microsoft!

This chart shows that the Flash install base is not as high as some (i.e. Adobe) claim

Over six times less currently. Of course, the general Slashdot usage trends may be different. I am sure Google can steal market share from others though - especially if they release viable Mac/Linux versions of Chrome.

Javascript 1.5 (aka ECMAScript ECMA-262 Edition 3) is what most developers target for good reason. But there are supersets found primarily in Gecko based browsers. But then you throw in the various DOM quirks between browsers and before you know it, programming anything large in Javascript that will be used across a wide variety of browsers can really start to suck due to minor quirks between different implementations. It will be interesting to see how their test cases support/address layout issues, if they do at all.

Microsoft has a history of rising up to destroy the browser competition that exists at the time. They also seems to rest on their laurels afterwards in a manner that stagnates web innovation.

This time though, there are a few viable competitors and the Windows platform, while still dominating, has dwindled since the last browser war. So I think healthy competition will hopefully remain in place this round. Nonetheless, Microsoft should not be underestimated - they now see the value of controlling the Web via a dominant browser, and they also have Windows 7 on the horizon, which may or may not increase their OS market share. You can bet on IE8 being a prominent feature in Windows 7 and pushed to existing Windows users.

I wish the underdogs luck!

Microsoft has a history of rising up to destroy the browser competition that exists at the time. They also seems to rest on their laurels afterwards in a manner that stagnates web innovation.

This time though, there are a few viable competitors and the Windows platform, while still dominating, has dwindled since the last browser war. So I think healthy competition will hopefully remain in place this round. Nonetheless, Microsoft should not be underestimated - they now see the value of controlling the Web via a dominant browser, and they also have Windows 7 on the horizon, which may or may not increase their OS market share. You can bet on IE8 being a prominent feature in Windows 7 and pushed to existing Windows users.

I wish the underdogs luck!

This chart shows deployment stats on the "stable" 1.x releases of Chrome. There are instructions on getting Chromium to compile on Linux. Chromium is the open source project behind the Chrome browser.

Linux client market share needs some help. I think it is great to get the word out there that Linux is a viable desktop alternative, and maybe this will turn out to be a good way to win some converts. However, I think perhaps learning from what worked well for Firefox and then perhaps building a similar grassroots campaign combined with a well designed site that shows some real desktop advantages offered by some of the more polished distributions combined with the option to download easily runnable OS images (i.e. VMWare Player) might fare better.

Linux client usage appears to be making gains as well. I am assuming the articles reference to "stronger data center position" hinges on primarily server usage.

Currently less than 25% of browser usage can pass the ACID 2 test. It will be interesting to see how the release of IE8 affects this. Luckily for JS developers, projects like JQuery make cross-browser scripting WAY easier and less error prone. Hopefully broad support for an increasing subset of web standards will make cross-browser layout quirks less annoying for web developers. Overall I think the ACID tests are a good thing to measure this.

I think this is a far more interesting and depressing graph. I just don't get it.

-Will

Agreed. This graph pretty much summarizes why dropping their Mozilla relationship would be incredibly stupid on Google's part.

Interesting site. To expand on your post, it looks like the number is even higher (over 11%) for people that use Google: Statowl site filtered by Google

According to these guys: http://www.statowl.com/third_party_cookie_support.php Roughly 9% of Internet usage will not be trackable using 3rd party cookies. I am not really for or against Google's decision. But I think it is interesting to see what percentage of Internet users are aware of tracking mechanisms and are also against being trackable.