StatCounter Blasts Microsoft's Claim About IE Still Being the Number 1 Browser

An anonymous reader writes "Do you remember when Microsoft tried to claim that Internet Explorer was still the most-used browser by accusing StatCounter of using a flawed methodology? Well, StatCounter has just posted a response that walks through a number of errors and omissions in Microsoft's reasoning. They (rather politely) explain the importance of sample size, discuss the value of page view counts versus unique visitor counts, and explain the difference between their methodology and that of Net Applications."

Comments

Re:OK, so you're both full of it

[squiggleslash]

GA reports, that of the 506,682 people who visited the sites run by my employer in the last month:

28.29% used IE 9
25.70% used IE 8
14.61% used Firefox 12.0
5.39% used Chrome 19.0.1084.52
4.33% used IE 7 (thank God.)
3.07% used Safari 534.57.2
2.56% used Android Browser 533.1
2.45% used Firefox 13.0
1.27% used Chrome 19.0.1084.46, and 1.25% used Chrome 19.0.1084.56

Removing version numbers:

IE: 58.63$
Firefox: 21.38%
Chrome: 8.88%
Safari: 7.52%

The fact that our site of HALF A MILLION USERS is getting almost three times as many Firefox users as Chrome users is why I think the idea Chrome is #1, even considering my employer's demographic, highly improbable.

Re:Who cares

[Vellmont]

I read through the stat counter article, and I was generally displeased with the heavy handed tone, and the general "this is the ONLY way to do it" attitude by the stats counter author. It's kind of odd defending Microsoft, but I think they have some decent points.

I'm a web developer, and frankly both metrics are useful to me. Why? Page views you already made a good case for, but when I develop a site, I need to know how many people are going to be pissed off when their browser doesn't work on my site. If a browser doesn't work on my site, and the user just leaves because of it, that isn't really offset by the fact that some other user on a different browser goes through the site more. So I heavily disagree with the idea presented by stats counter that the ONLY thing that matters is page views.

Re:OK, so you're both full of it

[squiggleslash]

That's a sample size of a little over half a million, not one.

My employer, FWIW, is a publisher of financial advice. We're not targeting geeks (specifically) or any other group. While I'd expect the figures to be slightly skewed, I'd say they're likely to be closer to normal than, say, some Slashdotter's blog.

Re:OK, so you're both full of it

[squiggleslash]

1. They're not stats from just one website. They're stats from all the websites run by my employer
2. There are over half a million visitors being counted here.
3. The question at issue here is not "What are the exact market shares of each browser" but "Is it remotely plausable that Chrome has surpassed IE in market share?"
4. You've asked me for the figures after I've said this doesn't match my experience. You're now moving the bar.

Seriously, if you're not interested in what figures I'm seeing that make me think the original survey is ludicrously out of whack with reality, don't fucking ask for them !. I'm not trying to convince you, I'm telling you why I think this survey is improbable.

I'm looking at the figures for a set of general interest financial advice websites. These sites do not attract a demographic likely to be skewed towards any particular browser. So I'm basically getting half a million samples to look at that are more or less random. Most of these people are using IE.

This figure tells me that it's highly improbable that Chrome is doing better than IE. You can disbelieve that if you wish, but I will remain skeptical until I either see something more solid from StatCounter, start seeing my figures change, or start seeing other web surveys actually back StatCounter up.

Re:OK, so you're both full of it

[squiggleslash]

Actually, don't bother responding to my previous response to you. After the modbombing and the idiots saying that sample sizes are measured in "Number of times I took a bunch of samples" rather than "Number of samples actually taken", I'm done with this.

I posted some figures for a group of websites that I know aren't likely to be skewed towards any particular browser. Those figures have been modded down to oblivion, for no apparent reason.

And you can't even be civil.

So I'll stick you on ignore for a while, and I'll leave this thread. Shame, it would have been interesting to see what other webmasters experience vs this survey is. That's not terribly likely to happen in an environment where publishing GA figures gets you modbombed.