Accurate Browser Statistics? 137
zyl0x asks: "A co-worker of mine has been made responsible for a large web application for our software product, and he was having a hard time deciding what functionality to implement, and whether or not to sacrifice functionality for a larger user base. With Walmart's harsh stand on browser compatibility, we got to thinking, exactly how many users would we be alienating by using some IE-only functionality on our website? We tried crawling the internet to get some current, accurate browser usage statistics, but we could only find stats for specific websites. I thought I'd try sending Google a request, since we imagine they'd have the lowest-common-denominator in terms of types of users, but I received an email from their press department telling me that they 'don't make that kind of information available.' Where can one get a current, accurate, and un-biased measurement of browser usage? Is it even possible?"
Depends on your audience (Score:5, Insightful)
Firefox, the second-most-used browser, seems to have a marketshare of 10-20% depending on where you look. So you'll probably be blocking at least 10% of potential users, if not more, by restricting your site to IE users only. And that percentage continues to grow.
Keep in mind also that IE is only available on Windows (not counting emulation, which is of limited use). The Mac version has been discontinued. Unless you want to block all Mac users, you'd better provide at least Safari or Firefox compatibility.
Also, any site that already restricts browser access is going to have skewed results, because the potential audience using other browsers has either cloaked their browser to look like the supported one, or has gone somewhere else.
Since you say this is a new application, you'll want to get statistics from a similar product that works cross-platform.
These aren't the browser stats you're looking for (Score:5, Insightful)
I''ll mostly refrain from talking about the monumental stupidity of using IE-only functionality because I know the Slashdot crowd will be (justifiably) beating your head in over that momentarily. Good luck with that.
It almost doesn't matter what percentage... (Score:5, Insightful)
For almost every site out there, the answer to this question is "Yes". If you are in that situation, it would pay for you to use technology that would work on all browsers, or have a browser specific page with equivalent functionality for non-IE browsers. You often see Slashdot comments in these types of threads that say the "extra 5% of the market is too small for the company to care about". Sure, 5% seems small, but the costs of developing cross-platform support for web applications is usually so low that you're throwing away free profit by ignoring even the least-used browsers.
There are other arguments too... Many IE specific features are annoying even if you are an IE user, Using technology that isn't standardized across the industry make maintenance more difficult across platform versions, etc... But really it comes down to the money.
Compatability still a big problem? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or am I just being ignorant in thinking this isn't really a major problem anymore?
Am I missing something here.... (Score:2, Insightful)
http://validator.w3.org/ [w3.org]
You can make anything you like available on a web server. If someone complains, and it follows the standards, then it's their fault. If it doesn't, then it's yours.
Yes, Macs (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey, if you want to block millions [lowendmac.com] of potential visitors, that's your prerogative. Personally, I'd like to keep the doors open for them.
Re:Compatability still a big problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
*you know: Rock and Roll all night, Party everyday! (yes, I couldn't resist)
The important ones... (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you want to gamble on which 5% that is?
- RG>
Count users, not hits. (Score:1, Insightful)
I only count "browsers per known user per day". So users that come in more than once per day are only counted once; anonymous users (and robots/crawlers without a credit card in hand) are excluded.
This, not surprisingly, results in a number that's quite different than traditionally published "browser" numbers. The net result is that the browsers I must support are IE6, IE7, Firefox, and Safari.
But of course, being standards-compliant, it's easy for us to support any browser.
Your numbers will be different, because you're in a different industry with a different customer base.
A Suggestion (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:These aren't the browser stats you're looking f (Score:3, Insightful)
No, this is bad advice too. Walmart's just built a web service that only works in Internet Explorer. How many non-IE users do you think they are seeing in their logs compared with IE users? Looking at your current users can only tell you to keep doing more of the same.
What you need to measure is not what your current visitors use, but what your target audience uses. Unfortunately, the web wasn't built around this kind of need, HTTP is a stateless protocol with unreliable user-agent identification. What you need is good old-fashioned polling. In-band data can be skewed beyond usefulness.
Re:These seem fairly accurate (Score:3, Insightful)
How are you judging the accuracy of these statistics? I don't see any estimated error or confidence level. They don't describe their methodology. Are you doing what most people do and considering statistics "accurate" just because they reinforce your existing beliefs?
Re:It almost doesn't matter what percentage... (Score:4, Insightful)
Testing with Lynx is actually quite a good idea. Not only will you make sure that blind people can see your site, you can also confirm the complexity of your website and how easily information can be found from there.
Re:These aren't the browser stats you're looking f (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, maintenance (Score:3, Insightful)
Another thing to think about is future maintenance. Take a look at what IE7 did to IE-only Web sites. Lots of IE-specific things that worked find in IE6 suddenly didn't work or worked badly in IE7 because of changes in the browser. If you'd written an IE-specific Web site that actually used IE-specific features (as opposed to "we only tested it in IE" without using anything beyond bog-standard HTML/CSS/JS), you had headaches. Sites designed to work well in Mozilla, Opera and Safari, by contrast, made the IE6-to-IE7 transition with few if any problems.
So you not only have to ask whether it's worth it to accomodate non-IE browsers, you also have to ask if it's worth it to target only IE and deal with the havoc when Microsoft moves your target again (and they will move it, the only question is when and how far).
Re:It almost doesn't matter what percentage... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Engineering VS Development (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Depends on your audience (Score:3, Insightful)
If your site is called "IEBugFixes.com", you'll probably have 99% MSIE visitors. If your site is called "FirefoxPlugins.com", you'll have 99% Firefox visitors.
Just run your own browser statistics or try to find out the browser statistics for your closest competitors.
The real important question is; what MSIE-specific features would you want to include, and do they really improve your site?