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

Posted by Soulskill on from the browser-election-recount dept.

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."

5 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Sample size by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    237 out of 237 Microsoft employees recommend Internet Explorer

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  2. Re:Ok... by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That seems about right for linux desktop market share. Who is claiming it is not?

    Now claiming that includes all the servers out there can't be right.

  3. Re:Who cares by SomePgmr · · Score: 5, Informative

    I was, at least, interested in the bit about why they use Page Views instead of Unique Visitors. My initial reaction would have been to side with Microsoft with the Unique Visitors metric, but StatCounter makes a great case...

    - Person opens IE on a machine (for whatever reason) and uses a site that's part of their network. Let's call it five pageviews.

    - Then they close IE and use Chrome or Firefox for 500 more pageviews, to every other site, for the rest of the day.

    Now using Uniques, you'd show that person as an IE user. Or at maybe you'd 50/50 it. Both methods poorly represent that person's browser usage than the total pageviews by browser. It's not perfect, but it does make sense.

    Their youtube video makes it quite clear, and it's good that they did this.

  4. Re:The reason is simple by oakgrove · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Android browser does not represent itself as Chrome unless you actually install Chrome. And even then it represents itself as Chrome on Android so, no, StatCounter did not count Android in their stats.

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  5. Re:Who cares by gbjbaanb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    but then there is also the embedded browser factor - I open my newsreader app and that counts as a IE page view, or I open my OSS dev tool and that counts as a webkit view.

    Nowadays its not easy to really get anything other than a broad estimate of browser usage.