SfC Home > Web Design >
Explanation of the importance of knowing the popularity statistics of various Web browsers to Succeed in Web Design. Also refer to Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, speed, security, Ron Kurtus, School for Champions. Copyright © Restrictions
Web Browser Popularity Statistics
by Ron Kurtus (revised 11 April 2012)
Web designers must be aware of the differences in the appearance of their pages on the different Internet browsers. Issues include rendering speed, adherance to Internet standards and consistency in dealing with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, and Firefox are presently the most popular desktop web browsers. Safari, Opera, and Adroid are the most popular mobile browsers.
Questions you may have include:
- Why should designers be aware?
- What are the statistics for personal computer browsers?
- What are the statistics for mobile browsers?
This lesson will answer those questions.
Web designers should be aware
When you design a web page, you want to make sure that it looks as you want it to look on the various Internet browsers. As part of this, you need to define your target viewing audience. If most of your users are viewing your website on their desktop or laptop computers, your main interest is with the computer browser statistics. If you also expect users to view your pages on their mobile phones or tablet computers, you also need to be aware of the mobile browser statistics.
Top web design applications such as Adobe Dreamweaver allow you to see how your pages look on the various popular browsers, in order to avoid viewing issues.
If a large number of people accessing your website probably have older browser versions, you also need to be aware and check rendering in those cases.
You cannot - as a web developer - rely only on statistics. Statistics can often be misleading.
Global averages may not always be relevant to your web site. Different sites attract different audiences. Some web sites attract professional developers using professional hardware, while other sites attract hobbyists using old low spec computers.
Also be aware that many statistics may have an incomplete or faulty browser detection. It is quite common by many web-stats report programs, not to detect the newest browsers.
(The statistics above are extracted from W3Schools' log-files, but we are also monitoring other sources around the Internet to assure the quality of these figures).
Personal computer browser statistics
As of March 2012, the following statistics hold:
Microsoft Internet Explorer: 19% - 29%
Google Chrome: 23% 37
Mozilla Firefox: 22% 37
W3Schools.com provides a lower percentage but also gives the popularity per version:
IE 8 = 15.6%
IE 7 = 7.6%
IE 6 = 7.2%
When designing web pages in CSS, it is still necessary to know of the IE quirks and employ work-arounds. This is espcially true since more than half of the people—espcially the less sophisticated users—use IE.
Mobile browser statistics
Usage of the Firefox browser is increasing. They continualy update the browser online, so there aren't specific versions.. As of July 2010, the percentage of people using Firefox are:
30.7%
Speed, security and added features have resulted in increasing popularity of Firefox. Also, some use it simply in protest of Microsoft.
Safari: 23%
Opera: 24%
Android: 20%
Nokia: 13%
Summary
Websites should be designed for Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers. Since the number of people using the other browsers is negligible, it is often not worth the effort to be concerned about them.
Provide an excellent product for your customers
Resources and references
The following resources provide information on this subject:
Websites
Usage share of web browsers - Wikipedia - averages several sources
Browser Statistics - NetMarketSahre
Top Five Browsers - StatCounter
Web Browser Market Share - StatOwl
Web browsers (Global marketshare) - Clicky
Books
Top-rated
books on Website Design
What do you think?
Do you have any questions, comments, or opinions on this subject? If so, send an email with your feedback. I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.
Share link
Click on a button to share the link for this page:
Or use our form to send this link to yourself or a friend.
Students and researchers
The Web address of this page is:
www.school-for-champions.com/web/browser_popularity.htm
Please include it as a link on your website or as a reference in your report, document, or thesis.
Where are you now?
Web Browser Popularity Statistics