IE usage falls below 50% on TGTAP.com!

[Chris]

Ever since I started TGTAP I have in some way or another been tracking statistics on visitor info like any good webmaster should. Back in 2002, almost everyone used IE. Unfortunately, IE still has the biggest install base in the world of any browser, and I believe it's still used by about 75% of internet users.

Discrepancies are often seen on tech/gaming sites though, as the sort of people who use these websites are generally more aware of alternative browsers and tend to not get as many IE users as more general websites.

Now, ever since we've been tracking stats at TGTAP, we've seen IE's user share fall EVERY month without fail. The main browser responsible for this is of course Mozilla's Firefox, which pretty much everyone here recommends when someone having browser problems turns out to be using IE!

Logging in today I view the stats for last month from (1st May to 1st June) and to my surprise I now see IE usage BELOW 50% (I think last year it was about 70, the year before about 80... etc.)

Below is a screenshot from my Analytics account, it shows that from almost 700,000 unique visitors (that's individual people, NOT page views) last month (will we ever hit 1 million a month?), 49.7% of them used IE, yes, still the majority, but only by a few percent, look at the 2nd most popular, Firefox with 42.4%.

I reckon in the next few months the gap will be closed and it'll be pretty much equal between the two.

Another thing good to see is that those of you who still insist on using IE, 63% of you have thankfully at least upgraded to 7... but a worrying 36% are still using 6!

I dunno if anyone else here is interested in seeing the stats but I thought I'd post them here anyway to please all the Firefox promoters we have. If anyone wants to see other stats then just let me know I'll screenshot more things if you like. "For what?" you may ask, well, pretty much anything you can think of.

[JustADummy]

Damn, I thought Mozilla was teh bomb.

[Red_91]

I have both FF and IE7 but I dont really see that much of a difference, I prefer IE7 since I use it a lot more but I aint really fussed but its good thats theres some healthy competition.

[TM™]

FF is like FTW. IE7 doesn't have much on it. It's like slow at some point, but still is a nice browser to use, well sometimes. Firefox has awesome addons and spell check which is good. As well as that, Firefox 3 (Which I don't know if it's released or not) is going to be awesome.

Good statistics though. At least you can own someone with these stats if they like IE.

[chris82]

Damn, I thought Mozilla was teh bomb.

What the hell are you talking about?

Anyhoo, good to see non-shitty browsers making a difference, can't wait for FF3.

[Thomas.]

At least we have a good diversity of the browsers we come on with, I personally prefer FF but some people like IE, Safari and some people like coming to TGTAP on their games consoles, TGTAP is that good

[Artur]

Haha yeah I found it funny seeing PS3 and PSP up there. Some of those browsers I haven't even heard about but FF rocks.

Edit: BTW, early test-release of FF3 is out, just downloaded it.

Edited June 2, 2008 by Artur

[Pandora]

ATM I'm using FF, but that's because of FireFTP. I use FF just for that, downloads (download manager) and a few other minor things.

Firefox renders faster, but uses like 2 times the amount of RAM (according to Windows Task Manager). 500 MB ATM, while IE is just using 40 MB (but then IE has barely any tabs open right now. But when opening the same stuff, FF just uses more.)

But yeah, I'm pretty neutral in choice ATM. Just boils down to the name I fancy most at the time, though I think I'm using IE just a slightly more often than FF.

[JROCK]

FF is what i use and so far i cant complain

[Connor]

I like FF in combination with IE6, because on Windows Messenger, I can access my emails without having to wait 7 hours for IE7 to load up.

[WRX22B1998]

hmm cool

I use firefox, but ive used IE7 a few times (pretty much only when i have to do windows update.

IE6 was ok, but always was crashing n stuff

[Angry Gorilla]

I am one of the PSP users, because I like to surf the web at two in the morning.

I'm mainly a Firefox user.

[JustADummy]

2 in the morning? Wow, you crazy bitch!

[My Friiend iis Jesus]

Im stickin with FF...IE7 has give me too many problems !

[WRX22B1998]

Hey what do you reckon my phone's browser would come up as? its not opera mini or anything, just the "web" item on nokia n81

[Hansui]

i use Firefox... i never thought many people still use IE

btw, whats the difference between Firefox and Mozilla?

[chris82]

Mozilla is both the company that makes the browser, hence why both the browser and e-mail client have the "Mozilla" prefix.

Mozilla was also software created by the Mozilla company before Firefox/Thunderbird were created. The Mozilla suite was a browser which contained e-mail/IRC/HTML editing/etc....all built into the browser without extensions.

Firefox was created by the same company to be a lightweight and awesome browser that what the user needed could be added on by them so every browser would be unique depending on the user, but would still do a better job at everything than IE.