IE Drops To Single-Digit Market Share

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IE Drops To Single-Digit Market Share

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 30, 2014 @07:27AM from the but-high-in-the-single-digits dept.

New submitter fplatten writes "I think this is all you need to see to know what legacy Steve Ballmer has left at Microsoft, where its IE browser market share has collapsed from a high of 86% in 2002 to just 9% now. I guess this is just another in a long list of tech companies that failed to maintain its dominant market share. Also, IE may be the one product that never really deserved it, but just piggybacked on Windows, and users left in droves once decent (more secure) alternatives and standards became popular." Microsoft stockholders probably don't feel too badly about the Ballmer legacy overall, though -- browser choice is a pretty small arm of the octopus.

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More reprsentative stats please by Richard_at_work · 2014-01-30 07:30 · Score: 5, Informative

W3Schools has a very skewed demographic, I wouldn't take their figures to be a true representative across the board.
My companies websites (Insurance) have an IE share of about 40%.
1. Re:More reprsentative stats please by jones_supa · 2014-01-30 07:37 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  StatCounter's 12/2013 data shows IE being at 24.91%.
2. Re:More reprsentative stats please by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-30 07:43 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I will hazard a guess that you own neither a car nor a home, and that you don't have to worry about anyone being supported until they're 18 in the event that you get hit by a bus before then.
3. Re:More reprsentative stats please by kesuki · 2014-01-30 07:48 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  keep in mind windows 8 live tiles are all front ended with internet explorer. so they are anticipating higher ie traffic to sites that windows preloads so they can sound like they are doing something to compete with open source browsers...
  
  --
  https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
4. Re:More reprsentative stats please by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · 2014-01-30 07:51 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I keep the stats on 12 state government websites. As sad as it may be, the lowest I've ever seen IE (taken as a whole) dip was 55%. And, for the record every site is tested and compliant on a multitude of browsers and not a single one recommends IE. We're getting there, but we're not at single digits yet.
  
  --
  "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
5. Re:More reprsentative stats please by magic+maverick+ · 2014-01-30 07:54 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Yes. Don't trust one website's stats. Always look at your own stats before deciding you can afford to not support a particular browser. Of course, you should always use progressive enhancement, so that even if people do insist on using ancient browsers, they should still be able to get the basic content. (It's a pity more people don't take the view, but considering the web was intended to be a universal, regardless of machine or software, medium, it's the view that is more inline with the intention of the web.)
  
  --
  HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
6. Re:More reprsentative stats please by HornWumpus · 2014-01-30 07:55 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  My first job out of school was in the insurance industry.
  There is no better example of clueless IT. The whole industry is run by and for the benefit of the commissioned salespeople.
  Because of that (and the simple computer problems faced by insurance) they get the bottom of the barrel of techs, programmers and engineers.
  Your users are so dumb (insurance salespeople) that whatever came on the machine is going to be what they use.
  Get out. The grass is greener, just about anywhere. Even banking.
  
  --
  John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
7. Re:More reprsentative stats please by skids · 2014-01-30 07:59 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  ...and all those reloads web developers do when trying to figure out "why the hell does this not work under IE" do add up.
  
  --
  Someone had to do it.
8. Re:More reprsentative stats please by rts008 · 2014-01-30 08:00 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I don't know that an insurance co.'s site would be a good example here.
  I have several sites I have to access that I cannot use anything but IE to visit them and do my business.
  I think it would depend on the ins. co. correctly implementing standards to be a valid source of data for this discussion.
  IMHO, all of the browser stats are biased in some way.
  Too many of the stats come from niche or specialized websites.
  I would think somewhere like google search to be a better place to gather stats for this.
  But, I'm not a web developer, so what do I know?
  
  --
  Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
9. Re:More reprsentative stats please by WPIDalamar · 2014-01-30 08:05 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Looking at logs I have access to, I see
  Between 50% and 65% for a series of education related sites.
  6% for a highly technical site.
  Clearly what the site caters to has a big impact.
  I bet apple.com is even lower ;)
10. Re:More reprsentative stats please by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2014-01-30 08:06 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  My hobby (veggie gardening) website shows the following, out of 7034 visits this month (per Google Analytics):
  Safari (appears to be iOS for the most part): 1,828 / 25.99%
  Internet Explorer (must be all the Surface users eh?): 1,564 / 22.23%
  Chrome: 1,511 / 21.48%
  Firefox: 1,368 / 19.45%
  Fifth place, at 5%, is "Android browser" which I'm guessing is that gosh-awful thing from Android 2.2 / 2.3...
  
  --
  #DeleteChrome
11. Re:More reprsentative stats please by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2014-01-30 08:20 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Hmm.. I can't seem to find it in the Debian/Hurd OS repos. Guess its not ready for the big time.
  
  --
  Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
12. Re:More reprsentative stats please by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2014-01-30 08:25 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  No, Fox news has an agenda to push, its terrible on purpose. Slashdot is just terrible on accident.
  
  --
  Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
13. Re:More reprsentative stats please by Anubis+IV · 2014-01-30 08:48 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I bet apple.com is even lower ;)
  You might be surprised. I seem to recall that they revealed the breakdown a few years back, and the IE traffic was much higher than you'd expect, simply because of interest from the typical, rank-and-file Windows variety of users who were looking for a change. I'll admit that I could be misremembering, however.
14. Re:More reprsentative stats please by MightyMartian · 2014-01-30 08:50 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I just popped up our site's stats We have had about 31,000 visits this month (according to awstats). IE comes in at 23%. The winner is Safari at 26.1%, so that tells use there are a helluva lot of iPhones out there. Firefox and Mozilla come in at 17.3% and 10%. Chrome comes in at 16.1%.
  What it tells me, most of all, is that smart devices are becoming the dominant surfing platforms, and that not just IE, but Windows in general in slipping down the list.
  
  --
  The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
15. Re:More reprsentative stats please by noh8rz10 · 2014-01-30 08:56 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Tom's Hardware has a good rep, right? not a shill review site? I think it is like Anandtech.
  http://www.tomshardware.com/re...
  Results start on page 4. ie10 doesn't blow away everybody else, but it's middle of the pack on most metrics and best or near best on some metrics. notably, there's no consistent winner across the board, it's not like any one browser is the king.
  before it used to be 2x worse than the others!
16. Re:More reprsentative stats please by amicusNYCL · 2014-01-30 08:56 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  StatCounter's 24.91% is a much more impressive decline to me than W3Schools' 9%.
  
  --
  "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
17. Re:More reprsentative stats please by amicusNYCL · 2014-01-30 09:00 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I would think somewhere like google search to be a better place to gather stats for this.
  You would think, but then again most people probably don't change the default search provider in their browser. And I don't believe that IE's default search provider is Google.
  
  --
  "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
18. Re:More reprsentative stats please by lgw · 2014-01-30 09:01 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  How are you confusing Windows 9 with a browser?
  All of MS's nice profitable products are still pretty tightly coupled with Windows. They could and probably should change that, but I'm not holding my breath. Until they do, it's pretty important that they sell a version of Windows that people actually like on the traditional/corporate desktop. Today Win7 is that version (and I'm a fan of it), but if they stop selling Windows 7 when Windows 9 comes out, well, Windows 9 had better be well received.
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
19. Re: More reprsentative stats please by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-30 09:14 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  He can't here you.
  I can't wait for transporter technology to be perfected. When I want to yell at somebody, I can "here" them, give them a piece of my mind, and then "away" them. Preferably someplace far from where they started.
20. Re:More reprsentative stats please by kiddygrinder · 2014-01-30 09:36 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  i hate IE because i had to build websites that worked in IE 6. never forget
  
  --
  This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
21. Re:More reprsentative stats please by xaxa · 2014-01-30 10:14 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Visitor attraction + scientific research institution, 50% hits from UK, rest pretty much even across the rest of the world:
  Main domain: 650k "visits" (Google Analytics definition) this month. 31% Chrome, 26% IE, 18% Safari, 17% Firefox, 3% Android.
  60% Windows, 19% iOS, 13% Mac, 6% Android, 1% Linux.
  Another domain of no interest to visitors, only scientists (and hobbyists, probably): 52k visits, 33% Chrome, 33% Firefox, 24% IE, 7% Safari, 2% Opera(!), 1% Android
  85% Windows, 10% Mac, 2% iOS, 1% Linux (the site isn't very nice on a mobile, we don't think many people want to look at tables of data on a tiny screen).
22. Re:More reprsentative stats please by Threni · 2014-01-30 10:19 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  As a government body, of course, they'll also be skewed. There's probably, for example, loads of poor bastards forced to use IE6 or whatever and who are not allowed to installer their own choice of browser for security reasons (don't laugh!).
23. Re:More reprsentative stats please by tlhIngan · 2014-01-30 10:42 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Main domain: 650k "visits" (Google Analytics definition) this month. 31% Chrome, 26% IE, 18% Safari, 17% Firefox, 3% Android.
  60% Windows, 19% iOS, 13% Mac, 6% Android, 1% Linux.
  Another domain of no interest to visitors, only scientists (and hobbyists, probably): 52k visits, 33% Chrome, 33% Firefox, 24% IE, 7% Safari, 2% Opera(!), 1% Android
  85% Windows, 10% Mac, 2% iOS, 1% Linux (the site isn't very nice on a mobile, we don't think many people want to look at tables of data on a tiny screen).
  The interesting thing is, or rather, something wrong, is that Android's marketshare is around 80% of smart devices, iOS around 20%. And yet in all your stats, iOS still comes out ahead of Android.
  Even Ars Technica, a site for technical enthusiasts still records just over 50% IE usage. And on mobile, iOS takes 50% of the traffic, while Android is around 35% (Android+Chrome).
  So the question is - why is iOS so over-represented? We know there are at least 4 times as many Android devices out there.
24. Re:More reprsentative stats please by LordThyGod · 2014-01-30 10:50 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Firefox was built on Netscape so given the equally terrible experience of developing for Netscape back in the IE6 days I would be surprised if you didnt hate Firefox as well. Both Netscape and IE were terrible to develop for with their proprietary non-standard extensions, Netscape just had the decency to die and be reborn under a different name to make people forget its horrible legacy, IE should have died and been resurrected under a different name around IE10 when Microsoft finally changed tact and brought standards compliance to the forefront.
  Contrary to Steve Jobs' comments the Internet Explorer of those days was *not* a very good browser, but >=IE10 is pretty decent.
  One difference is that Netscape's "proprietary" extensions included stuff SSL, cookies, and javascript. They created a lot of what the web is all about, and were successful enough to scare microsoft into retaliation for having a better idea, which led to the anti-trust suit. Netscape didn't so much die, as was stabbed in the back by a wannabe. IE10 might be good somewhere, but it sucks out loud on android, osx, ios and Linux (my preferred platforms). At best, its a niche product.
25. Re: More reprsentative stats please by anubi · 2014-01-30 13:06 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Congrats for feeling that way. I wish more of us had such a conscience.
  
  Consider leaving a decent savings account along with the kids... if something happens to you, you have left a rainy day account to take care of your obligations.
  
  I am hard pressed to trust anyone to pay my bills after my interment. I learned my lesson after years of dutifully paying for dental "insurance", month after month dutifully enclosing my check for "coverage", only to have it explained to me in the dentist's office when an expensive procedure was recommended, that I would not be "covered" because it was "abrasion" and not normal wear and tear. There went several thousand dollars worth of premiums down the drain. No wonder insurance companies can pay agents, build big buildings, and advertise like all getout. They get to keep the premium money, cause sick people don't put up much of a fight. The insurance industry has also found out that if people wise up to their business model, they can go lobby Congress to make their product mandatory. Many Congressmen are quite reticent to "just say NO" to a Lobbyist.
  
  --
  "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
26. Re:More reprsentative stats please by Mandatory+Default · 2014-01-30 13:24 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Your description of Netscape being "backstabbed" appears to conveniently forget that Netscape didn't ship anything useful for for FIVE YEARS. As stated by Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape#Netscape_Communicator_.28versions_4.0.E2.80.934.8.29):
  Netscape released the final version of Netscape Communicator [4.x] in June 1997.
  Netscape 6 was not yet ready for release and it flopped badly
  Netscape 7.0 (based on Mozilla 1.0.1) was released in August 2002
27. Re: More reprsentative stats please by FatdogHaiku · 2014-01-30 13:34 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  He can't there you either...
  
  --
  You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
28. Re:More reprsentative stats please by kiddygrinder · 2014-01-30 20:10 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  lol, why would i hate firefox, it's the first browser that actually made MS stop pissing in their users' mouths and work on IE. you should fucking LOVE firefox, cause otherwise it's possible you'd be still using IE 6 right now.
  
  --
  This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
No doubt IE is losing share but.. by manquer · 2014-01-30 07:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

w3schools.com really? That's best data set OP could come up with??
1. Re:No doubt IE is losing share but.. by Ralph+Wiggam · 2014-01-30 07:52 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It is the best data set to make Microsoft look bad- which is the point here.
2. Re:No doubt IE is losing share but.. by fermion · 2014-01-30 08:57 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The more accurate summary maybe that that most people who have a choice and know better do not use IE. This has always been the case since the internet began. IE has never been a decent or secure browser. It was an ok application front end, ane most people used it because there was no choice, and why run two different browsers. To this day I have websites written in legacy code that only run in IE. TO be honest, for a few years, maybe 1997-2000, there were a few, mostly intranet, bussiness cases that did justify the use of the MS Internet. Mostly it was just laziness, which we are still paying for, So yes, in the wide world IE may still have a majority, or a least be the largest minority in the web browser use. The web browser war, though it over, and the MS IE strategy has lost.
  
  --
  "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
W3Schools: Ubiquitous Internet Hub by gr4nf · 2014-01-30 07:34 · Score: 5, Funny

It's a good thing there are websites out there like W3Schools that just about everybody visits on a daily basis. How would we get these statistics otherwise?
doesn't add up to 100 by schneidafunk · 2014-01-30 07:37 · Score: 3, Informative

9.0 + 26.8 + 55.8 + 3.8 + 1.9 = 97.3

--
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Re:Does this take into account smartphones? by lagomorpha2 · 2014-01-30 07:39 · Score: 5, Funny

"mobile devices over the last few years (hundreds of millions) and none of those are running IE."
Well IE is the default browser that comes with Windows Phone so that's like... the 5 people that bought a Windows Phone.
Re:doesn't add up to 100 by ackthpt · 2014-01-30 07:39 · Score: 5, Funny

9.0 + 26.8 + 55.8 + 3.8 + 1.9 = 97.3
0.7 = Lynx :)

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Stock price by Dilaudid · 2014-01-30 07:40 · Score: 5, Funny

Microsoft stockholders probably don't feel too badly about the Ballmer legacy overall, though
He joined in January 2000 when according to that link, the stock was at 48.94. Today the stock is at 36.50. Managing a -25% return over 14 years is not a good thing.
1. Re:Stock price by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-30 07:59 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  100 shares purchased on January 3, 2000 would have cost $11,656.00.
  With stock splits and dividends, current value is $9,941.88 for a minus 14.71% return.
  http://www.microsoft.com/investor/Stock/StockSplit/stockcalc.aspx
2. Re:Stock price by nedlohs · 2014-01-30 08:04 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  No he isn't. Microsoft's own calculator ( http://www.microsoft.com/inves... ) says that if you invested in MS stock on 1/1/2000 and reinvested all dividends back into them then you've managed a -14.71% return (ignoring inflation).
  If you had waited until 1/1/2001 on the other hand you would have managed a 129.18% return (again ignoring inflation).
  Of course I'm sure that has nothing to with the dot.com boom and bust or anything...
Serious sample bias by linuxwrangler · 2014-01-30 07:43 · Score: 4, Informative

The statistics are "collected from W3Schools' log-files..." So an English-language site for people interested in web development is now considered an accurate proxy for browser usage? I think not. Predictably, the results are way out of line with, well, pretty much everyone:
http://www.netmarketshare.com/...
http://gs.statcounter.com/
http://www.w3counter.com/globa...
http://browsermarketshare.com/
http://clicky.com/marketshare/...

--

~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
statcounter numbers by Cyko_01 · 2014-01-30 07:45 · Score: 4, Informative

IE at 22.82% and falling
chrome at 43.67% and rising
firefox at 18.88% and falling slightly
safari at 9.75% and rising slightly

there is a strong correlation between chrome and IE in both gains and losses
I do not mind IE by Billly+Gates · 2014-01-30 07:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

What I do mind is old IE and wanting that to go down to single digit marketshare.
Why can't we all have nice websites that look as good as your apps on your phone? IE the fact that users never ever upgrade!
Shit IE 8 is 5 years old now and we can't have HTML 5 outside our crappy tiny phones. Inexecusable. Let this dinosaur die and I hope the intranet developers die a horrible death who still do not know what ECMA script is and think Jscript is javascript. ... and that statistic is BS. If IE 9 and early hits single digit it is time we stop making business sites that work in HTML 4 and CSS 2. They wont upgrade until websites stop working and websites wont stop working until users upgrade. Now it is 2014 and we are living 10 years in the past due to the same old BS.

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http://saveie6.com/
Re:15% of my customers are IE7 or below by Todd+Knarr · 2014-01-30 07:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's a vicious circle. At my former employer we were on IE6 because several of our critical Web applications only worked correctly with it. And since we were locked into IE6, any new Web applications had to work with it as well which removed any pressure to update. The only way we'd've gotten resources allocated to update those few ancient Web apps would have been if some other business-critical Web app had abandoned IE6 support entirely and said "IE 8 or later or we don't work". Which they won't do because they don't want to risk losing their IE6 user base. And round and round it goes, like a pair of orbiting black holes.
Looks like a case of... by Bill_the_Engineer · 2014-01-30 07:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

A biased submitter found a statistic to support their claim that IE is no longer relevant. I agree IE may be losing relevance but the w3school log files only show that people who want to learn how to write a webpage from w3school are likely to use Chrome. I suspect if I looked at the log at Microsoft's developer network I would come to the conclusion of IE being preferred by developers, and if I went to Apple's developer site it would show that Safari being preferred by developers.
The other red flag being that the statistics are presented as percentages with no absolute numbers given. This could be a site serving a very small demographic with very low volume. In fact the site discloses some of these caveats in the "Statistics can be misleading" section of that page.

--
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Re: Difference between JScript and ECMA Script by JcMorin · 2014-01-30 08:00 · Score: 3, Informative

Humm, as a developer I feel a bit idiot because I never really ask myself the question... and always think it was the same thing. After a quick look it seems I'm right, both compile and run the same way... it's different name for specific version of ECMA Script. http://stackoverflow.com/quest...
Re:15% of my customers are IE7 or below by BUL2294 · 2014-01-30 08:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

Let's see... Microsoft has only themselves to blame for this problem. They stopped supporting their non-standard features in newer versions, and made the stupid decision to not make newer versions of IE to try to "nudge their OS choices". In mixed OS environments, even if only temporary, the version of IE used ends up being the least common denominator. So, in a shop that ran a mix of XP, W2K, and 98, you standardized on IE6. Currently, if you're running a mix of XP and Win7, you're likely using IE8...

Obviously, this plan backfired on Microsoft. What other browser vendor supports 6 major versions of their browser? Oh, and if you thought that IE6 would fall off with the demise of WinXP, think again--it came with Windows Server 2003, so IE6 is already supported until 7/2015, just shy of 14 years after it was introduced!!! (And that's not assuming that XP doesn't continue to get support fixes beyond 4/2014 or even 7/2015...)

--
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
And Slashdot goes to zero by recoiledsnake · 2014-01-30 08:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

W3Schools is a site for web developers and does not represent the web despite the three W's in the name.
Net Applications(which measures visitors instead of page views like Statcounter) has it at ~50%.
Story brought to you by the same geniuses that brought you the following stories:
"Draconian DRM Revealed in Windows 7"
http://tech.slashdot.org/story...
"Microsoft to abandon Windows Phone"
http://mobile.slashdot.org/sto...
(As an aside, the above story was submitted by the zealot megalomaniac symbolset).
Milking views by trolling only works for so long.
Thanks to zealot posters like bmo, symbolset, Zero__Kelvin, LordLimeCat, Jeremiah Cornelius, UnknowingFool, rtfa-troll, binarylarry, MightyMartian, drinkypoo, pieroxy for karmawhoring the groupthink and slowly ruining the site by spewing lame shill accusations. Oh and thanks to moderators for marking them insightful and modding down any posts that go against the groupthink.
When the beta lands and is the default without a way to go back to the old layout is the day I remove Slashdot from my bookmarks and unfollow on twitter.
Last one out turn off the lights.

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whom ever says IE sits at 8% is wrong.. by strstr · 2014-01-30 08:20 · Score: 3, Informative

I am sure at w3schools they're dealing primarily with devs, who do in fact prefer another browser over IE. but on my site of 3000 unique visitors per month, I'm seeing... what others are seeing at sites other than w3schools.
The breakdown is :
Firefox 27.3%
Google Chrome 26.1%
MSIE 16.6% (down quite a bit from a few years ago)
Mozilla 10.6%
Opera 7.7%
Safari 6.5%
Unknown/Android/iPhone/etc make up the rest.
Most of my IE users are IE6.. o.o
On my other site with a seeding of 1500 unique users, IE sits at 29.5%, Chrome at 33.7%, Firefox at 17.9%, everything else, who cares .. It makes me wonder what more Windows orientated sites, mainsteam news sites get - Yahoo, Rage3D, Tomshardware, etc. These are the sites I think most of the IE users are on (my site here gets most of it's users from the AMD graphics card camp, doing 29.5% IE).
Re:Nothing new by jfdavis668 · 2014-01-30 08:22 · Score: 3, Insightful

Netscape existed before Internet Explorer.
THen they are idiots! by Dcnjoe60 · 2014-01-30 09:07 · Score: 4, Informative

Microsoft stockholders probably don't feel too badly about the Ballmer legacy overall, though -- browser choice is a pretty small arm of the octopus.

Microsoft's stock is 20.89% higher than it was on this date in 2002. That is an average yearly increase of 1.74%. US Savings Bonds had a greater return over that time period! So, if their shareholders aren't upset, they should be.
"Idiots" by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-30 09:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

As much as I loathe Internet Explorer, this sort of response is unproductive. A lot of people are forced to use Internet Explorer who are neither idiots nor prey on them. Public access computers in libraries, computers in businesses and non-profits that have limited IT resources, and schools in lower income areas are also large users of Internet Explorer.
Such blind, fanboyish hatred doesn't serve those users at all.