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When customers sit down to browse the web, they have more choice than ever about the browser they’ll use. Here in the Internet Explorer team, we look at usage share as one of several results that come from developers targeting, partners supporting, and customer preferring the latest version of Internet Explorer. Last month we saw some encouraging news about browser preference. Internet Explorer 8 saw solid share growth, growing faster than Google Chrome, continuing the trend of being the fastest growing browser. In addition, we saw Internet Explorer share decline by the smallest amount in more than a year.
Today, Net Applications released their usage share numbers for June and the positive news continues. In June, Net Applications shows overall Internet Explorer share growing by 0.57% worldwide. Internet Explorer 8 share continues to be the fastest growing browser with a 0.66% increase in share, more than 3 times the growth of Google Chrome, while Firefox share declined. These numbers are especially interesting when you consider that IE users in Europe have been offered the Browser Choice Screen. As the Net App share results demonstrate, IE usage share gained .88% just in Europe this month, as customers continue to choose IE8 above the alternatives. Additionally, IE grew .81% in Asia and .12% in the US with IE8 growing 1.22% to over 40% of usage share in the US.
As I mentioned above, usage share is simply one of several ways we evaluate our progress with IE. We certainly don’t judge our business on just two months of data but the direction here is encouraging. With the excellent reception of the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Previews which have been downloaded more than 2 million times to date, the future is looking bright for Internet Explorer.
Ryan Gavin
Senior Director, Internet Explorer Business and Marketing
Wow congrats guys. Surprising Europe results as well. I continue to use IE8 on all my PCs and recommend it to others.
People keep choosing IE because they don't know the alternatives.
People often ask what to choose from the ballot screen, and are quick to choose Firefox when they learn that it has a massive amount of extensions they can use to make their browsing experience more efficient. After a while using Firefox with Adblock Plus they wouldn't dream of going back to the ad-infested IE experience.
@ Tommy Pedersen
What motivates people like you troll MS blogs and even create aliases just so you can crap all over the products? If you don't like them, don't use them.
@webguy Thanks for being an IE8 advocate!
@Allegro Thanks for taking the time to post - and for standing up for IE / MSFT. We welcome discussion in the comments but generally ask that it stays on topic. In this case, Tommy's response is broadly on topic so it's OK. It raises an interesting discussion topic though which I'll follow up on in my next comment.
@Tommy Pedersen Thanks for the comment. You've raised an interesting philosophical discussion about the role of the browser in the overall web ecosystem.
I'm assuming that you, like me, prefer content on the web to be free. Sure, there are a few sites that I'm willing to pay a subscription to access their content but the beauty of the web is that most sites a free and readily accessible. If we extend the example you give and large numbers people adopt Firefox + Adblock Plus it cuts right to the heart of the business model that keeps content on the web free.
This illustrates the delicate balance that companies who create browsers have to make. Given how often I see people recommend Adblock Plus, you might expect Firefox to just pull the functionality into the core experience - clearly there's user demand. But in the larger context of the web ecosystem, it doesn't make sense for them to do that. It would hurt their business partners and in the long run, it would hurt Mozilla too. But through Firefox's addon model - which allows deep integration to the browser - a developer can create an addon like Adblock Plus. That's a fair balalnce. Firefox doesn't block ads but a 3rd party over whom Mozilla has no control creates an addon that does.
I completely agree that Firefox has a big and diverse add-on ecosystem. As it happens, IE doesn't do too badly either at ieaddons.com although our addon philosophy are a little different to Firefox. We focus more on customizing your experience around the content and services that customers use rather than adding features. Both add-on ecosystems have their place. People like you and I probably enjoy tricking out our browser experience more than people who just use the browser to browse the web. For some people, getting their eBay Daily Deal in a Web Slice is all the customization they need.
I hope you'll visit the blog again. Do check in on the progress of IE9 because even if you don't decide to switch back to IE, I think you'll start to look at IE in a different light.
Best
James
I've stuck with IE through all the years and generally pleased with where IE9 is heading. I think the challenge for IE is on mobile/slate devices. Hopefully IE9 Beta will introduce some new UI features, fresh design that enhances touch/pen/voice support. Prior versions are mouse/keyboard centric. Thats fine, but I don't want each slate to have an OEM customized IE interface. Please create a default UI that can span form factors.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics. How much of the uptake of IE8 is due to new or upgraded Win7 sales that just haven't yet bothered to download Firefox? Of course you didn't test your results for this before declaring victory -- I wouldn't either. As a developer of online application back-ends, who sits across the aisle from from the poor QA monkeys dealing with our web store, I can tell you the one thing IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and every other web browser have in common: they all suck. Badly. Truly the web browsers of today set new benchmarks in random behaviors and lack of reliability as an application delivery mechanism.
@Wes Peters I don't think Ryan is declaring victory in this post. As he points out, share is one of many ways we judge our business and 2 months of data are directional, not a trend. It's common in the browser space to call attention to positive results. Firefox recently posted their view on some share numbers : weblogs.mozillazine.org/.../a_better_web_is_winn.html
We agree that there are too many inconsistencies between the way browsers handle markup today. One of our goals for IE9 is to drive the industry toward "Same Markup" across browsers. You can read a little more about it on our engineering blog here : blogs.msdn.com/.../html5-and-same-markup-second-ie9-platform-preview-available-for-developers.aspx
Colored statistics.... Would IE8 also show such growth if it
1: Was not integrated in win 7
2: Would not be forced to peoples PC's through windows update ...
wait .. windows update ? oooh.. must have been a flaw in the naminng... Microsoft Update would be a better name as simple users will be forced to new versions regardless if they can use it or not
"" As I mentioned above, usage share is simply one of several ways we evaluate our progress with IE. We certainly don’t judge our business on just two months of data but the direction here is encouraging. With the excellent reception of the Internet Explorer 9 Platform Previews which have been downloaded more than 2 million times to date, the future is looking bright for Internet Explorer. ""
Internet Explorer is starting to get on the right track again,after beeing defeted by Firefox and Chrome lately. + 1 for Microsoft!
Also,internet explorer 9 will be integrated into W8?
Another interesting thing that should be taught about is <a href="best-read.com/how-to-fix-windows-update-error-80072efe">windows update error 80072efe</a> . This is a common error meet not only on windows vista but Windows 7 and might be in XP aswell,not quite sure.