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IE Drops To Single-Digit Market Share

Posted by timothy on 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.

18 of 390 comments (clear)

  1. More reprsentative stats please by Richard_at_work · · 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 · · Score: 5, Informative

      StatCounter's 12/2013 data shows IE being at 24.91%.

    2. Re:More reprsentative stats please by Anonymous Coward · · 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 Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · 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.

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      "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    4. Re:More reprsentative stats please by magic+maverick+ · · 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.)

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      HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
    5. Re:More reprsentative stats please by skids · · 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.

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      Someone had to do it.
    6. Re:More reprsentative stats please by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · 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.

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      Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
    7. Re:More reprsentative stats please by MightyMartian · · 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.

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      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    8. Re:More reprsentative stats please by noh8rz10 · · 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!

    9. Re: More reprsentative stats please by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    10. Re:More reprsentative stats please by kiddygrinder · · Score: 5, Funny

      i hate IE because i had to build websites that worked in IE 6. never forget

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      This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
  2. No doubt IE is losing share but.. by manquer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    w3schools.com really? That's best data set OP could come up with??

  3. W3Schools: Ubiquitous Internet Hub by gr4nf · · 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?

  4. Re:Does this take into account smartphones? by lagomorpha2 · · 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.

  5. Re:doesn't add up to 100 by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny

    9.0 + 26.8 + 55.8 + 3.8 + 1.9 = 97.3

    0.7 = Lynx :)

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  6. Stock price by Dilaudid · · 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 · · 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

  7. I do not mind IE by Billly+Gates · · 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/