OS Stats Removed From Google's Zeitgeist

Kelly McNeill writes "Google's Zeitgeist service is sometimes used by news sources as a resource to generate install-base (don't call it market share!), statistics for operating systems. osViews contacted Google to bring some clarity to questionable aspects of the OS statistic, to which Google said that Zeitgeist is only a fun search inquiry resource and should not be used to generate statistical information. A couple days after that inquiry, we found that Google has since removed the OS stats from the Zeitgeist service."

Comments

Browser stats also gone

[friedegg]

I know a lot of people were waiting to see the July browser stats to see if Internet Explorer share dropped off after the vulnerability announcements last month.

Re:Browser stats also gone

[Njovich]

I use the user agent string Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html). It gives access to quite a few sites that only give full access to subscribers and Google...

Re:Browser stats also gone

[DaveJay]

Better still to change your browser string to get yourself into the site, then (once you've found everything works fine) send a note that says

"Hey, just so you know, I surfed your site with (browser) with a hack to fool your site into thinking it was IE, and your entire site worked fine. So, your site is compatible with (browser). You can safely remove your "your browser is incompatible" message for this browser."

They might do it, they might not, but in this case you've done the work for them -- if you don't validate the site, some site-maintaining wonk has to convince their boss to pay for the new browser testing -- and many bosses won't do that.

Re:Browser stats also gone

[Adam Wiggins]

I actually emailed a site (planetxusa.com) like this, mentioning that IE is not available for my platform and that the site works fine in my browser, except for the stupid warning box. Their webmaster wrote me back a detailed message - he had never heard of a platform where IE was unavailable (i.e., he only knew of Mac and Windows) and was really curious about it. I answered his questions, and he replied saying that they would take down the warning message. About a weak later it was gone.

So - sometimes it works! :)

Re:Browser stats also gone

[Mycroft_VIII]

"Their webmaster wrote me back a detailed message - he had never heard of a platform where IE was unavailable"
Am I the only one who read that and wondered how anyone can call themselves ANYTHING that implies computer savy at any level and NOT know there are things out there besides windows and apple?
Especially anything web related, next this guy will be shocked to find out apache isn't just a tribe of native americans.
I sincerely hope this isn't your bank or some other site where thier cluelessness can cost you in some way.

Mycroft

Re:Browser stats also gone

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, my Konq was refused on some sites, so I changed the browser ID to 'Emacs on Sinclair ZX Spectrum 64kB' and haven't any problems since. The trick seems to be the version number - on a whim I made that 11.1. It seems that sites don't care what browser you use, provided that the version number is higher than 5 or 6 - go figure...

I can see why...

[TWX]

If people are citing Google's "just for fun" figures as something to base critical decisions on, Google could be subject to liability for the accuracy of the figures. Granted, it's not likely that a lawsuit would succeed, but simply having to defend against one wouldn't be very good.

Good riddance; hope it comes back

[LeninZhiv]

Good riddance, as I agree with OsViews that the statistic was scarcely credible. All the same, I'd like to see a more finely-tuned version come out someday that does reflect the OS of google users come out someday. That truly would be a useful rubric with which to track the 'zeitgeist' of the net.

What I don't get

[r.jimenezz]

That Google doesn't want to talk to the press now, I understand.

That the OS/browser stats would not be too reliable (I assume they are computed similarly, via the User Agent String) I can also easily understand.

That they took the stats off Zeitgeist, however, that's what I don't get. Wonder if they are now a bit paranoid about all things media after their recent faux pas?

BTW, those who don't like reading the articles would wish all stories were like this ;)

Re:Bets are on...

[AKAImBatman]

I've been considering that for awhile. I think Google would do really well if they produced a complete operating system that leveraged their web services and PageRank technology. Imagine if you could finally get rid of those annoying directory structures and just used "Google Hard Drive Search"! And all your bookmarks could be searched in a similar fashion! No need to bother with organizing them!

Accuracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The big problem with the Zeitgeist stats, from what I've heard, is that they only recorded the same IP address once. For people who are more likely to have a broadband connection, which is probably true of Mac and Linux users, they get counted less because their IP address changes less frequently. As Google said, it's just for fun.

Re:Accuracy

[Aero Leviathan]

Here, I'll take you through this logically.

Premise 1: Mac and Linux users are more likely to have broadband connections than Windows users. (I'm not saying that it's true, but for the sake of argument, we will assume it is.)

Premise 2: Users with broadband have IP addresses that rarely change; users with dialup have IP addresses that change frequently.

Premise 3: Google counted OS usage by the number of IP addresses that used them.

Step 1: Premise 1 + 2 implies that Mac and Linux users are more likely than Windows users to have IP addresses that rarely change.

Step 2: Step 1 + Premise 3 implies that any given Mac or Linux user is likely to be counted by Google's statistics fewer times than any given Windows user.

Now you see how the results would be skewed in favour of Windows, given the three premises (the first of which supplied by the grandparent). I think I did this right... feel free to correct me if I have erred.

Re:Accuracy

[drawfour]

Premise 4: Dial-up providers have more users than modems/IPs.

They know that at any given time, a certain percentage of their users will be connected and a certain percentage will not. Thus they will have enough modems and enough IP address to accomodate that number plus some extra slack for "busy" days. Thus, since it is more likely to be Windows users connected to these dialups (premise 1), we can conclude that Windows boxes are counted less often than Mac and Linux boxes.

And if you think about it, AOL and MSN are two example of providers that have MILLIONS of users, but do not have nearly that number of IP addresses available.

Of course, businesses running Windows XP/2000/98/95/NT also have similar problems because they are likely running behind a few gateways to get access to the outside world.

Now you see why the results would be skewed in favor of non-Windows.

It's a real shame

[barcodez]

It's a real shame Google have removed this interesting stat as it is as good as any browser/os statistic available due to the huge an ecletic user base of Google.

I guess things are changing at Google and their free , open and considerate attitude is set to change with the IPO.

The search results I've been getting from Google have been decreasing in usefulness at an alarming rate over the last year - it's sad to see Google go this way.

Erie

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla finally gains market share and ...(poof) ... Google stops collecting evidence.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

What about slashdot.org statistics?

[gmajor]

I, for one, would be very interested in seeing the browser and OS breakdown on Slashdot. IIRC, slashdot has not given out this info in the past?

Re:What about slashdot.org statistics?

[rd_syringe]

Back when Slashdot still had public statistics, as well as what Malda and crew said in a past IRC conversation (so keep in mind the stats are a few years old), Windows and IE were the dominant environments.

Re:What about slashdot.org statistics?

[colmore]

In the community's defense,

1) While there may be no excuse for IE, there are still lots of reasons for "real nerds" to use Windows.

2) I imagine a pretty high percentage of Slashdotters are reading at work.

Re:What about slashdot.org statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to see the OS and browser attached
to *all* of the comments.

"I read Slashdot at work....." Give me a break.
Get a real job, you don't think working on
microsoft boxes all day doesn't affect your
brain. Try reading some of your own posts.

Re:What about slashdot.org statistics?

[DaveJay]

For what it's worth, I use FireFox at home, and so does my wife (who, once transferred against her will from IE and Eudora to FireFox and Thunderbird, has grown to love them and is now an evangelist for both in her workplace).

Amongst my coworkers at a technology company, I recently sent out a response to someone's email about IE that said "this is why you should use FireFox", and his response was, "I usually do -- I was testing with IE". An informal poll around the office showed an approximate 30% usage rate. I was surprised and pleased.

Where Mozilla failed in my little circle of the world, FireFox seems to have succeeded.

Meanwhile, up north

[Otter]

Lesson learned from this morning's "Lunix's desktop share is triple MacOS's!" "No, dumbass, Google Zeitgeist has it at 1%! "No, you M$ astroturfer, that 51% for Windows XP is all Linux users with spoofed browser IDs!" argument:

Google has pulled OS stats from the US Zeitgeist but Canada still has them. And Lindsay Lohan has pulled ahead of Avril Lavigne.

Re:ha

[Trurl's Machine]

I have a question for slashdot... can I use your polls for scientific research? Will my request result in slashdot removing their polls section? What kind of a crazy assed reaction is this?

It's actually typical for a public company. Just imagine that someone sues Google because he was indeed using Google Zeitgeist for some scientific research, unaware that it was just for fun. It doesn't matter that this claim is ridiculous. Its very existence will most likely create negative market reaction. Even if the shares drop for just 1%, if you are among the company's top rank, it will generate enormous loss for you. If you have, say, 100.000.000 dollars in company stock, you have just lost 1 megabuck just because of this crazy accusation. So public companies act rather paranoid in situations like this. That's the reason why media in the US were too chicken to say "tobacco is addictive". Just the very thought of being sued by big tobacco companies made every CEO of every media corporation to wet his pants with fear. Expect more "crazy assed" reactions from Google as they continue to "go public".

Will google lose "it"?

[mmmmmhotpants]

I wonder if this is the first string of changes we can expect from Google?
I've always found Google to be like a fun friend: putting fun cartoons on special days, promoting their employee bicyclist, april fools jokes, Zeitgeist, google-toolbar for the benefit of all humanity. This gave me a sense that not only where there normal (albeit brilliant) humans behind this deceptively simple search engine, but that they were passionate about what they did and really cared about your well-being. They dared to change the world and they refused to be bullied around while doing so.
With the words IPO and Playboy in the air and with them having to answer to shareholders instead of their own wit, will we see a change in the Google we have grown to love? Now that they have sucked us into their happy world will they give us huge banner ads and pop-ups?
With their stock will they sell their dignity? I sure hope not.

Re:Will google lose "it"?

[One Louder]

I think it's inevitable.

Eventually the people there that seem to care will move on or be too rich to care any more. They'll be steadily replaced by folks that were not part of the history and early culture. Then as pressure mounts from the analysts, the markets, and Microsoft, then you start to see minor expediencies, then increasingly more questionable stuff.

It's easy to say "do no evil" when you're rolling in money, but when the pressure's on, that's when Google's real character will be seen. If they can maintain their stated ethics with a huge quarterly loss looming, then they'll be the first company ever to do so.

Linix/Mozilla = gaining / Apple = flat

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like Mozilla is gaining.
Looks like Linux is gaining.
Looks like Apple is flat.
All of the competitors have a long way to go to catch IE/Windows.

source:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats .a sp

Re:Google Cache?

[Matheus Villela]

Google cache is good, but web.archive is best as you can see here

Re:Do People From GOOGLE Read /.?

[Suppafly]

Google has GoogleGuy who responds on a lot of forums. From what I understand, it mostly one guy, but it's a generic name so that anyone that works at google can step up and fill in for him.

Re:The only reason this article was posted...

[WindBourne]

..was so people can't refer to Zeitgeist's damning 1% Linux usage statistic anymore when discussing desktop Linux.

And why does Google suddenly care?

For that matter, why do you think that they are accurate? Most of the konqi browsers that I see out there are set to MSIE due to the fact that so many sites will try to block you if you do not run it. Probably should pick Mozilla to emulate, but I have seen site block that as well (homedepot would only accept MSIE for a time).

Re:Bets are on...

[DaveJay]

BeOS was very cool in this regard. You could keep a window open on your desktop with a search string, and as you updated/deleted/moved/renamed files on your machine, the window would update itself live.

As a matter of fact, you could also define and search custom attributes, so you could build a flat file database on top of the BFS filesystem, and your desktop queries would update themselves as records went in and out...

(that's the thing about BeOS I miss the most)

Your Sig

[_Sprocket_]

There's a few things you're missing on your sig.

1) Slashdot had the same bias well before OSDN (then Andover) expressed interest in buying them.

2) As a general rule, all tech news is biased. You aren't likely to find unbiased news anywhere.

3) Slashdot rose from obscurity at a time when the more mainstream news sources' bias was almost entirely opposing Slashdot's bias.

Granted - that probably won't all fit.

Re:osViews is mine... here's the gist of the artic

[burns210]

Couldn't 'other' just qualify as anything that didn't fit the exact match of Mac/Win/Lin? I don't know what goes into making a web browser spit out what OS it runs on, but if that string of text, for whatever reason, was not matching the exact result expected from Google's stats machine, than it would just drop to other. I would assume many of the 'other' category were Win/Lin/Mac, but for whatever reason, failed to be categorized as such.

Reality Sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really want to know why google remove that particular statistic, stuff this in your eyeballs and smoke it:

http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmo r/ archives/010335.shtml

Which begs the question:

Just how far up Microsoft's Ass is google?

Re:Do People From GOOGLE Read /.?

[DogDude]

They probably did that because they knew that they would get avalance of "My browser is spoofed, so please change your statistics accordingly" from hundreds of disaffected geeks (as can plainly be seen from your post and hundreds others). I'm sure that somebody up top just rolled his eyes and said "oh shit, here comes the geek email." when they got their first email about the article. He probablyt turned it off so his customer service people wouldn't have had to spend so much time answering emails about this.

Gaming PCs often used for browsing

[Morgaine]

it was embarassing to show 75% Windows hits

The embarassment probably arises from reading too much into the statistics. Here's one reason why.

Even if people are technically sophisticated and highly pro-Unix/Linux/*BSD, if they play many PC games then they probably have at least one separate box running Windoze. I have three, because I like to multi-box with several accounts in MMOGs. I treat the boxes as games consoles and not as computers, ie. there is nothing of any importance on them besides the games. All my real computers run some flavour of Unix. Such restricted use of Windoze isn't all that rare either --- several of my gaming friends do this too.

When one isn't gaming though, those Windoze boxes would be going to waste if unused, so it's only natural to have Mozilla or Firefox installed on them and use them for browsing. That's a use that creates no investment in the flakey MS platform, so it's acceptable.

Inevitably, this skews the stats gathered by webservers, but hey, I can think of worse problems in the world today. Reading too much into stats never was a safe thing to do anyway.

Re:The only reason this article was posted...

[Mycroft_VIII]

The point people often missed with that stat is that the stat was of user agent strings, not actual user agent or os.
Many browsers support configurable user agent strings to get around all those sites that stupidly block non-ie browsers, often needlesly.

Mycroft

All This Flaming About Linux on the Desktop...

[Trolling4Dollars]

What does it matter if Linux is used by 1% of the visitors to Google or not? In the end, regardless of how many people use Linux, isn't it more important that those of us who do are happily being productive, saving money on software and and (if you are so inclined) being a bit more ethical? I use Linux pretty much exclusively at home and at work. I use Windows at work when I need to as well as Solaris, HP-UX and VMS. I've toyed with the BSDs, and I even pull out my Atari ST for notalgia. The soon-to-arrive baby is getting my wife's old Mac for the nursery. It's all good. For me the biggest selling point for Linux is that all the money I save on software allows me to spend more of my money on hardware. Now who can argue that more money for hardware is a bad thing? Stats be damned. For those of us who enjoy Linux, there is nothing that can be said to take away that feeling. Many of us are willing to help others get accustomed and aren't lunatic fanboys. I think in the end, there will be more of us than there are those types of people.

Non-US Stats

[ischorr]

I had noticed the browser/OS stats thing the other day and sent an email about it. To my surprise I got back an answer from "David Lemin" (dlemin@google.com) within a couple hours: Thank you for your inquiry regarding the Google Zeitgeist. As a result of user feedback we have decided to focus our efforts on the international expansion of the Google Zeitgeist and will no longer be publishing data about Web browsers, operating systems and languages used to access Google. You can view historic data in the Google Zeitgeist archives, http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist/archive.html . ...Which is interesting, though I'm having trouble believing the thing about "user feedback". Were there that many people complaining about the stats in some way?