Talk:Usage share of web browsers

Statcounter and ipod

On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 5:13 AM, StatCounter Global Stats <globalstats@...com> wrote:

Hi Daniel,

6.3% refers to the iPod Touch and *not* to the iPad.

The iPad does *not* meet our definition of a "mobile device" and is *not* therefore included in our Mobile Browser stats at all.

The iPod and iPhone *do* meet our definition and are both included in our Mobile Browser stats.

StatCounter Global Stats

http://gs.statcounter.com/ http://twitter.com/statcountergs

-----Original Message-----
From: "Daniel Cardenas" <daniel...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, 19 February, 2011 04:32 
To: "StatCounter Global Stats" <globalstats@....com>
Subject: Ipod touch 6.3% of usage? Perhaps it is more likely ipad?

http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-201102-201102-bar

Hi,

Ipod touch 6.3% of usage? Perhaps it is more likely ipad?

Thanks, Daniel

Discussion on Narrow Stats

Statowl represents the U.S. mostly and w3schools represents web technology enthusiasts. Should we have these narrow stats in the summary table? Previous discussion suggests that Statowl is not too narrow, while w3schools is too narrow. Please share your thoughts below. Perhaps the most relevant wikipedia policy is Neutral point of view. I suggest either both or neither be allowed and not pick and choose your favorite statistic. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:50, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

statowl represents stats from many different sites while w3schools only shows stats for its own site - this is the reason to have statowl stats and not w3schools. This is also the consensus that was previously reached on this page. Until different consensus is reached, please respect the previous decision and don't make new changes to the article in this area. Thanks ! Wikiolap (talk) 05:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Instead of defining it multi sites versus single site, how about global reach versus primarily regional stats? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Remove both.--Sandro kensan (talk) 20:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

The question about statowl has been discussed before - see the discussion and votes here: Talk:Usage_share_of_web_browsers/Archive_3#Remove_Statowl_from_summary. Likewise, w3schools has been also discussed before - Talk:Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Add_w3schools. Both discussions represent current consensus. Consensus can be changed, of course, you can request new vote (and keep rerequesting it every month) - there is nothing in the code of Wikipedia which would prevent that. Even though there don't seem to be new arguments, the corpus of editors change, their opinions change, and the result of vote may change too. (I personally find the jihad for removal of statowl from summary table a bit misplaced, and tactics used being questionable). Wikiolap (talk) 06:44, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes please cease your jihad and your questionable tactics. Claiming consensus to keep statowl when the consensus was to remove it. Please don't add it back in, until the consensus changes. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 17:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Daniel - I apologize for poor choice of words - it was unprofessional. I try not to trick the system, and I should assume that other editors act in good faith as well.Wikiolap (talk) 15:16, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate your contributions. Thank you! Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:14, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand the problem right now: what changed in the last few months? mabdul 18:37, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

There are/were 6 remove votes for statowl and 3 keeps. Seems the keep camp incorrectly believed they had a consensus to keep. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 21:30, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

And I didn't even voted... (oh and I would vote against!) mabdul 22:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

In light of the previous consensus linked above, as well as my own opinion on the matter, neither statowl nor w3schools should appear on the list. If either of them are currently there, they should be removed. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 23:16, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Now after the removal of statowl from the summary table, the summary table in the middle of the article and worldwide view table at the beginning became exactly the same. Is there a reason to keep both of them now ? I propose that one of them is removed (I don't have an opinion about which one). Wikiolap (talk) 05:55, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a contributor to Wikipedia, i was just browsing to find web browser statistics. I was horrified to see w3schools statistics and the link to w3schools site in this article. I was so horrified, that i had to register and complain :) Many people think of w3schools as a legitimate resource for web development, but in fact it is not. W3Schools is a commercial site with a very aggressive SEO marketing, and I'm afraid that linking them in wikipedia articles might be part of their marketing strategy. Learn more about w3schools here: http://w3fools.com/ I really don't see the reason why their totally non-representative data is included, when there are multiple, more reliable sources. I strongly argue for the removal of the w3schools data, and any links to their site. Babett (talk) 19:20, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Many people refer to the W3Schools stats as if they're representative of overall web usage, but it's one of the most biased samples I know of. There are plenty of other more representative samples available. I think we have plenty of samples already and can simply remove W3Schools stats. -- Schapel (talk) 21:31, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I Don't Count. Since I am the only developer working on statowl.com - I am biased - however, I don't think painting our data as "narrow" is entirely accurate. As I pointed out here Talk:Usage_share_of_web_browsers/Archive_3#Remove_Statowl_from_summary, we are not just US data. We also source data from hundreds of different sites which do not target users with specific technological interests (i.e. stats gathered from a blog about fedora linux topics would bring highly skewed data so we would not track that site). We are also continually expanding our data sources outside the US, but as things stand now, around 80% of our data is from US traffic. Any assistance in expanding our non-US data sources is greatly appreciated. We will be tracking a lot more Spanish content later this year and I hope this expands our footprint in countries where Spanish is the predominate language. Mikemc100 (talk) 05:39, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps in a year or two if the samples on statowl.com spread more it would be welcomed but as of now it is quite clearly not fit for statistical use on this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.241.135.189 (talk) 16:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

It looks like there was agreement that StatOwl should be in the summary table, but one editor removed it. I'm not sure why. I suppose the argument is that because most of StatOwl's data is from the U.S., it's biased. But all of the sources are biased in one way or another. The bulk of NetApplication's data is from large companies, causing it to report a large figure for IE usage. W3Counter counts only a certain number of page views from each site, which skews its data towards browsers used on small sites, and we can see that it reports a small figure for IE usage. Wikimedia attracts most page hits from young technology enthusiasts, so again its data shows a low figure for IE. I think we should include StatOwl and Clicky in the summary table, so all the recent sources are summarized in the table. In any case, the most biased numbers will not affect the median much, because the median represents what's left after eliminating the most biased figures. -- Schapel (talk) 19:23, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

What makes you say: "It looks like there was agreement that StatOwl should be in the summary table..." ? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:38, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

The comment on this edit. -- Schapel (talk) 21:59, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

See this comment above:

There are/were 6 remove votes for statowl and 3 keeps. Seems the keep camp incorrectly believed they had a consensus to keep. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 21:30, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 03:55, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Jan 2011 Bar chart does not match the key

a little consistency please :) key says IE ~43% char is 46%

World Map

Do we have any references for the world map? While it's a neat idea, I question its accuracy - it lists North Korea as predominantly using Internet Explorer, despite the fact that the country has virtually no web browsing statistics to mine, and considering the Red Star Operating System is UNIX-based, even if there were (or even if we were counting Kwangmyong statistics), I'd be inclined to think Firefox would predominate (and even if it didn't, the lack of a functioning IE for UNIX would make me think that at the very least, it would not be IE). 75.154.124.62 (talk) 19:05, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Please use proper citations for the browser world map. It was originally created by browserrank (at www.browserrank.com) in January 2011 and has been updated regularly since. At the time I proposed including that cite here. Now I see months later it is attributed to someone else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.142.79.171 (talk) 16:10, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Other Graphs

I found this website, which says IE has 54.27% of market share. http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?spider=1&qprid=0 Some unusual browsers though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by P3771 (talk • contribs) 18:51, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

That is Net Applications, they are referred to extensively. Thanks Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 21:30, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm guessing that the Playstation browser is not included in the table due to its not in other tables?P3771 (talk) 14:13, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

No, it isn't inlcuded since it has only such a low market share. mabdul 14:23, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Browser version (IE6, IE7, IE8, IE9)

Especially for Internet Explorer, it is useful to know the market share of specific versions. Web developers often need to decide if it is worth to support IE6 or not. I think this article should either provide those version-specific stats directly, or link to a place where you can find them. -- 78.48.230.55 (talk) 15:25, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

This article contains many links to find various stats for different versions of browsers. However, a web developer would be foolhardy to rely on those stats to decide whether to support a particular version of a browser on a particular site. Web developers should rely on the stats for each individual site, because they can vary wildly from site to site. -- Schapel (talk) 02:23, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Does not mean such stats are not useful for a web developer. Individual site stats are not always an option, especially on smaller sites, and pre-launch. Anyway, if there are some links that is sufficient. Unfortunately, the text is so long that it's hard to look for such links specifically. E.g., I tried to find-in-page for "version", and did not find what I was looking for. I remember this article does have such links, I am just not able to find them. So what about a section with links to version-specific stats, that is easy to find. (sorry for not doing it myself, but I am soo not into this article, it would take me hours to even get started) --78.48.37.118 (talk) 19:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

This article stinks of bias towards stats companies - it doesn't describe progressions or factors behind usage share but merely uses stats tables from commercial organisations. Really needs some 'Quality Control'! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.29.58 (talk) 07:55, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

In the past when author(s) tried to add progressions or factors other author(s) said that text belongs in browser wars article. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:28, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that version information is the thing that would be really useful. I don't care at all if IE is used more than FF. Is anyone still using IE5.0 or FF3.6? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.149.99.98 (talk) 03:21, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

That information available through the following links: Firefox, Internet Explorer. You can find even more detailed information by following the links to the sources in this article. That's the beauty of a well-linked, well-sourced wiki -- you can follow the links to get other information. -- Schapel (talk) 15:10, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Problem: thumbnails not getting updated

I updated many of the graphs but the updates aren't showing up due to system issue. If you click on a chart all the way to the end you will see the update. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 13:30, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Known problem. Techs are working on it. (at least for a week or so). mabdul 17:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I updated them manually. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 22:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

how the stats are collected? and discrepancy

50 to 30% is a HUGE difference. There is nothing in the article about the sites' sampling, how there could be a large discrepancy, etc. Are we supposed to accept the stats, hook, line, and sinker, or can someone write a little something about how the numbers can differ, what the sample sizes are, etc. Is the sample size near the size of the internet, or is it smaller? Some of the article addresses that, for example the Wikimedia, but not all of them have accountability listed with them. Please fix it.

--Hitsuji Kinno (talk)

Added a section: "Differences in measuring".   Feel free to improve.   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 20:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I removed the statement that weighted statistics cause areas that have a higher number of Internet users to be weighted more in the stats. They don't. They compensate for the fact that the stats collected are biased towards certain geographical areas. For example, NetApplications does not get collect much data from China. They compensate for this fact by weighted the data they have collected from China higher, correcting the problem with a smaller amount of data collected from that region. This makes the normalized statistics less biased, not more biased as the article seemed to imply. -- Schapel (talk) 22:32, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Adding mobile browser to the main browser for safari and opera

For statcounter, was thinking of adding mobile browser to the main browser for safari and opera. This has been done for wikimedia and with opera for netapp. A problem that I see with this is that for statcounter top mobile browsers it doesn't say safari, instead it says iphone and ipod touch. http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-201108-201108-bar . Would it be wp:synth to interpret these as safari browser?   Thanks, Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:31, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm fine with adding up the iPad and iPhone users to the total Safari users. We should keep Opera and Opera Mini separate, because those are separate products. -- Schapel (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I was suggesting adding safari and safari mobile. Those are separate but similar products. Are you o.k. with that? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 17:53, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Others may disagree, but I would say that Safari and Safari mobile are different versions of the same product, Opera and Opera mobile and different versions of the same product, and Firefox and Fennec are different versions of the same product. Opera and Opera Mini, on the other hand, are completely different beasts. Opera Mini is a Java program that requests web pages through Opera's servers. It's not really even technically a web browser, as it's incapable of browsing the web on its own. -- Schapel (talk) 23:23, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Added up Iphone and Ipod numbers and created a new table. Looks ugly. Let us know if you have suggestions.   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 04:12, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps having a single column of Safari and having a note that it includes iphone and ipod would be better. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 04:20, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Opera and Opera Mini

The Opera Mini article says that it is derived from Opera (web browser). So they are related, even though distinct products. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 23:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Opera market share error

I think it should be noted that Opera 11.50 (June 28, 2011) had 34 million downloads within 8 days ( http://www.linuxnov.com/opera-12-pre-alpha-wahoo-released-changelog/ ), whereas Firefox 4 (March 22, 2011) had around 40 million downloads total (despite being regarded by many as the biggest update in Firefox's history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.95.13.144 (talk) 12:31, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

This article is about how often a web browser is used to browse the web. Not how often it is downloaded. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 23:58, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Would it not follow that browsers that are downloaded often are more likely to be used (especially since a major build of FF that would have had more people downloading it than a normal build as people wanted to check it out was barely downloaded more than a minor change to Opera)? It is suspected that Opera's usage is grossly under reported as it often masks as IE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.91.96.178 (talk) 04:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Would be good if you had a reference for that. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 04:19, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Not sure, but this might be what he is talking about http://www.opera.com/support/kb/view/843/ Personally, mine identifies to all sites as IE unless I specifically state otherwise. Charwinger21 (talk) 05:50, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

incorrect data on data statics for site w3counter

just was comparing the growth of different browsers across different sites and noticed for some reason some of the overall stats seemed to be different then what is on the websites referenced. not sure if there was a reason or not but the w3counter site shows a higher usage for chrome and firefox then is indicated here and a lot lower usage of Internet explorer. im not sure what other stats may be wrong but Im certain the stats on there are wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.75.85.118 (talk) 11:28, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia table complexity

I have just updated the Wikimedia table, adding July's figures. I found it a very intricate and complex task, involving mental arithmetic to get the 'Total's for Opera and Safari. I was frustrated by the time I got near the end and found the column labelled 'Mobile, Other'. Other than what? By opening a spreadsheet, a copy of the article unedited, and a copy of the Wikimedia stats for June, I was able to reverse-engineer that it is the Mobile figure (given in our next column, with a spurious final zero added in the second decimal place) minus the mobile figures for Opera and Safari as well as the figure for Android. I followed the pattern dutifully.

When I got to adding the latest Wikimedia figures to the summary table at the top, I understood the relevance of the mental arithmetic regarding Opera and Safari - this is necessary to get totals for the summary - but I have not found any use for the 'Mobile, Other' figure. In order to encourage others to make the effort and help keep this page up to date, I propose removing the 'Mobile, Other' column from the Wikimadia table.

Finally, I wonder why we now have four summary tables in the Summary table section. Would three be enough, with a rolling deletion of the fourth when the first is complete? --Nigelj (talk) 17:46, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

If you'd rather not enter the "other mobile", then you could leave it blank. I find the data useful and I suspect readers do too. Thanks for entering the rest of the info. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 19:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

mobile numbers twice

I added netapp numbers. They are wrong like statcounter because mobile numbers are in there twice. Netapp changed the way they report and now report them similar to statcounter. If someone wants to fix it, that would be cool.   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 23:15, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I fixed netapp and statcounter for August. Todo: fix other months. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 06:33, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

"multiply the desktop percent from "mobile vs. desktop" by each desktop browser"

Apparently, the note under the StatCounter table is very important to understand our in-house maths. However, I do not understand the phrase above: I don't mean to be unnecessarily pedantic, but I don't know how to multiply a "percent" by a "desktop browser". Or why. --Nigelj (talk) 08:26, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I didn't know how to explain it, but this is for statcounter and Netapp. Lets say that desktop and Mobile browsers account for 50% of the browser share each. Then desktop browser share is reported as 30% for red, 25% for yellow, and 40% for green. Mobile browser share is reported as 33% for orange, blue, and purple. It is somewhat wrong to put these on the same row and say they add up to 200%. So what you have to do is multiply by the desktop or mobile share and then put them in the same row. Wikipedia reports correct percentage so no manipulation needed there. What do you think? Thanks for addressing this issue. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 16:52, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

To use the actual numbers from August:

• Desktop is 100%-7.12% = 92.88%. So multiply the desktop numbers by 92.88%
• Mobile number is 7.12%. Multiply the mobile percent by 7.12%.

Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 23:03, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I added desktop and mobile for statcounter. The numbers add up to:
38.91% + 25.53% + 21.51% + 6.19% + 3.09% + 1.4% + 2.8% = 99.43%
The small percentage that is missing is because we don't report desktop other.   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:21, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

I could use some feedback for motivation. Do you guys like it? Do you hate it? Should I continue, stop, change direction? Thanks, Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 03:08, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

OK, I understand what you're doing now. I think we could improve the explanation in the note a little more. How about changing

To get the desktop number multiply what Statcounter reports by desktop% as reported in desktop vs. mobile. To get the mobile number multiply Statcounter browser percentage by mobile %

into

For consistency, each StatCounter desktop browser share has been reduced by multiplying it by the current overall desktop share. Similarly, mobile browser shares have each been multiplied by the overall mobile percentage..

This assumes we can use a formatted 'ref' within a 'note'. I haven't tested that, but if it fails we can use the existing 'bare link' format on the italicised terms (in which case they probably don't need to be italicised)--Nigelj (talk) 11:28, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I looked at new tables for August (for statcounter and netapp), and they look visually confusing. IMO clamping Desktop/Mobile as a subheader makes it harder to read.Wikiolap (talk) 04:36, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Are you suggesting keeping desktop and mobile separate so that table is easier to read? Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 05:26, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think keeping desktop and mobile stats separate will make it easier to comprehend. Also, dynamics of desktop and mobile are very different - the dominant player in desktop (IE) is nowhere found in mobile, and vice versa (Safari).Wikiolap (talk) 02:15, 26 September 2011 (UTC)