Phil 23 Aug 06

It shows your audience is pretty much the techy crowd, and the high Safari usage shows some Mac brotherhood numbers. I have a couple of websites, the most popular being one that appeals to a “general audience”, and it shows around 85% MSIE, 10% Firefox, 3% Safari, and then others. The tech related sites are closer to 70% Firefox.

dave 23 Aug 06

I’m curious: how do the browser stats on the marketing sites compare to the stats you just posted for the apps?

Matt Carey 23 Aug 06

Two interesting stats screens on SvN this week. The browser stats above and the chart showing number of writeboards. How are you generating these?

Ron 23 Aug 06

Since the whole “IE Sucks” and “Firefox Rules” philosophy has gotten on my nerves so much lately, I just want to chime in and mention that there are still lots of technically sophisticated and savvy users and developers out there who are free to pick their browser and who still pick Internet Explorer.

omg 23 Aug 06

Ron, no there aren’t. IE does suck unless you’re a .net developer or don’t write cross-platform/browser xhtml/css.

jerry richardson 23 Aug 06

I doubt that the stats on “first-time visitors” would be as Firefox-heavy. All the 37signals sites provide a substantially better user experience for users who have chosen not to use IE. Using Firefox makes it much more likely that you will enjoy using the sites, aside from any “political” stance that browser choice may indicate.

Nathan 23 Aug 06

omg: How does being a .net developer make IE “not suck”? Just because you’re coding in c# doesn’t mean you don’t have to worry about cross-platform rendering? Its the same hassle.

Chris H 23 Aug 06

Ron, I’d be curious to know why you’ve chosen IE over Firefox? Comfort? Speed? Looks?

Seriously, this is not a dig on you, just curious why you’ve made that choice.

I will stick up for a lot of non-tech-savvy users who simply use what’s given to them on their computer. They either aren’t involved enough to know that Firefox is even a viable option, or don’t want to be bothered with it because it’s “open-source” and “open-source” scares a lot of people. I think the perception is that open-source software is buggy and unstable. If it’s free it can’t possibly be any good, right?

Plus, as long as their are sites that are “optimized for IE” then Firefox may appear to render these sites badly further turning people off, when in fact it’s IE that’s the culprit.

For the record, for general browsing, I tend to use Firefox on my Mac and IE on my PC - unless i’m using a web app like Campfire, etc. - then I’ll use Firefox on either platform.

Matt 23 Aug 06

I agree with Phil that it just shows you haven’t “chrossed the chasm” yet. You’re popular with the early adopter crowd but have trouble making inroads into the mainstream. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing though, as you already argued in the “defining your own success” article.

It does, however, expose you to a certain risk. The mainstream market is hard to get, but once you’re there, you stay there. The early adopters have a much shorter attention span.

John A. Davis 23 Aug 06

I have both IE and Firefox. I would change over to Firefox but they have limited support for my Powermarks, which I can’t live without since it allows me to skip bookmarks and allows me to sinc up with home plus a lot more stuff. Firefox is clumsy with Powermarks. IE puts it right in the toobar.

http://www.kaylon.com/power.html

This just in: when I went to get the Powermarks URL for you guys I see that they have a Firefox Beta Test one can sign up for. yippeee!

Rob Sanheim 23 Aug 06

I would love to see the platform breakdown.

Judging from those stats, it looks like Mac usage might be around 20-25% (all of Safari plus a small amount of FF/other), with Linux at the normal 0-5%. Is that about accurate?

Anonymous coward 23 Aug 06

I’ve got a porsche, but I spend most of my time worrying about the quality of the tarmac I drive on. It’s just so much more important for me to be driving on dark tarmac than less dark tarmac. Infact I worry about it so much that sometimes i get in the car and don’t even drive it becuase i can’t decide the best route to take…

Can I have a troll hat?

Mark 23 Aug 06

I echo the sentiment that it likely means your apps haven’t gone mainstream. I’m down with niche products. The stats just can’t be generalized to the population is all.

Daniel 23 Aug 06

“I don’t think Microsoft will figure out a way to own [the internet]. There’s going to be a lot more innovation, and that will create a place where there isn’t this dark cloud of dominance”
—Steve Jobs in a Wired interview from February 1996.

Well, yes and no, but if you’re a web developer you sure feel that dark cloud of IE…

Oh, and yay! for the stats

Tony 23 Aug 06

Mark,
I don’t see anywhere where they have attempted to apply their stats to the general population. Unless my reading comprehension has taken a serious nosedive of late, I believe they were just showing their stats and saying thank goodness “Firefox leads … because, gee wiz, we hate that darn IE 6.”

Chris 23 Aug 06

Browser stats are only marginally useful. For example, Opera identifies itself as IE by default, and Camino is often identified as FF. I sometimes spoof FF from Safari to get inside sites that wont identify my browser.

Prophetess 23 Aug 06

If you’re looking to remain a niche product, those numbers are good. But if you’re looking to give your products a wider audience and make big buck$, then those numbers are a danger sign, given how many users IE has. (I’m no IE fan myself, but I recognize that Firefox does not hold anywhere near a majority of the total market yet.)

Do you have stats on the browser usage among your target audience? I’d be interested in seeing those numbers alongside the ones you posted.

Andres 23 Aug 06

John A. Davis said:

I have both IE and Firefox. I would change over to Firefox but they have limited support for my Powermarks, which I can�t live without since it allows me to skip bookmarks and allows me to sinc up with home plus a lot more stuff. Firefox is clumsy with Powermarks. IE puts it right in the toobar.

Hey John, not sure if Google Firefox syncronizer would work for you. I’ve been using it for a while now and I’m really happy with it. Maybe what you’re looking for?

Jeremiah 23 Aug 06

I choose IE for one big reason: I could really care less.

I’m lazy. I have a work computer that is ghosted every six months. I hate reinstalling Firefox. IE fits into my habits. I can always hit +E to browse my hard drive and the internet. I use IE at home because I use it at work.

Because of what I do, Opera, Netscape and Firefox will eventually be installed on my work computer. But, like usual, my +E habit still exists. IE works, and until it DOESN’T there is no PUSH to install it.

Besides, I hate the ego trip of “IE sucks, Firefox Roxorz!” People who use windows (because of choice) and then insult IE need to move to a Mac or install Linux.

Jere 23 Aug 06

That +E is supposed to be WINDOWS+E

Mika 23 Aug 06

Windows + E is a Windows shortcut, not a IE shortcut. It will work with any application on, including Firefox.

“People who use windows (because of choice) and then insult IE need to move to a Mac or install Linux”
Windows = IE?!

Phil 23 Aug 06

BTW, the large organization I work for offers Firefox and IE, and Firefox has been an absolute nightmare for them since it has a patch for security venerabilities every other week that needs to be rolled out.

IE has a patch every month, but many of their automated tools already handle IE patches since they work like Windows patches. Firefox has to be rolled out like a whole new app to every desktop every 2-3 weeks or so for a new .5.0.x patch. That may be part of the reluctance behind other corps not giving “the choice” yet.

Phil 23 Aug 06

And also given that choice…. according to our Intranet stats, 95% of people still choose IE. Most people just don’t recognize that curled Fox as the way to the internet.

Mark 23 Aug 06

Jamis:

THAT is a much more interesting story!

Jeremiah 23 Aug 06

It is a windows shortcut, but I can type whatever i want in the address bar (including URLs). It works all the time, so I do not understand what you mean by this:”It will work with any application on, including Firefox.”

“Windows = IE?!”
Why do people complain about IE? Most people, arguing against IE, hate Microsoft. Microsoft = IE… They should pick up their skirts and walk to the Mac Bus.

Simple Reminder: There are three kinds of people:
1) People who complain about problems.
2) People who fix problems.
3) People who could care less about problems.

Greg Macoy 23 Aug 06

I think the reason people get annoyed about IE is that it doesn’t pay attention to standards. If it did, I think developers would be fairly happy to keep using it.

My big gripe is that given the opportunity to do something about it with IE7 they haven’t done it justice. IE7 is better than previous versions of IE (from my experience of it) but, now I have to create sites for standards compliant browsers, and tweak them for the several different versions of IE. I know MS are doing a big push to move everyone over to IE7 when it gets an official release - so it probably will be adopted fairly quickly but it doesn’t bode well for developers in the meantime.

The problem, I find, with the MS approach is that it’s up to them how much they let people develop and innovate. With more open systems, and standards everyone has a chance.

That said, I don’t think a big “IE Vs. Every other browser”, was the point of this article.

Phil 23 Aug 06

Rimantas: I don’t follow… I’m not saying IE has less vulnerabilities then FF, IE may have more then any program ever created. I’m just saying it’s been more of a pain to roll out the frequent FF fixes because many of the patching tools corps use don’t work as nicely with FF as they do for IE.

Scott Burton 23 Aug 06

“They should pick up their skirts and walk to the Mac Bus.”
Which is exactly what I did over a year ago. I also think everyone complaining about IE here are FF users or Mac users. However I only wear a skirt on occasion, and I usually don’t remember it.

The complaints (which I can empathise with) are the multitude of problems trying to work with and/or develop for IE. Plus it is cool seeing the 800lb gorilla slowly get knocked of its perch.

Lack of competition causes stagnation and who knows what IE7 would have looked like if it weren’t for FF. So you can thank them when you use your bundled IE7 on Vista in the distant future.

Bill Erickson 23 Aug 06

So do firefox-based browsers (like flock, which I use) show up as firefox or miscellaneous?

Greg 23 Aug 06

Stats from the marketing sites would be interesting to compare.

pwb 23 Aug 06

Would be interesting to see the % of MacFirefox.

To all the IE6 haters: IE7 is serviceable.

Brandon Eley 23 Aug 06

I’d love to see a platform/OS stats on those same apps. I’d love to see how many of your customers are using Mac OS vs. Windows (and even Linux).

ie7user 23 Aug 06

i use firefox also for basecamp but only because some features doesn’t show well with ie7/2.

to-do’s just don’t work…

ie7user 23 Aug 06

i use firefox also for basecamp but only because some features doesn’t show well with ie7/2.

to-do’s just don’t work…

Bob Aman 23 Aug 06

The stats you have on Backpack are pretty close to what I’ve got on my site, but with maybe 2 points less for Safari and a few points more for Firefox.

Blake P 23 Aug 06

Internet Explorer has a lot of work to do. You would think those guys would get it by now. Firefox is the truth.

Ethan Poole 23 Aug 06

I’d just like to point out Opera…

Hubris.Sonic 23 Aug 06

oh for the love of god.

ie, firefox, whatever… IE has the bene. of being the market leader. and firefox is a good product and alternative.

that being said, i cant believe none of you guys has remarked that Safari sucks, and it does. In fact I think you could give Apple credit for getting Firefox its market foothold. as a safari replacement.

MH 23 Aug 06

“if you�re a web developer you sure feel that dark cloud of IE�”

And if you’re not, you don’t. You have to pretend you’re not a web professional to understand this: regular users, when confonted with a site that’s broken because IE doesn’t do standards right, just figure it’s a broken site, not a broken browser. The don’t care about standards. Nor should they. They have very little reason to mistrust IE as a browser.

Ben 24 Aug 06

“that being said, i cant believe none of you guys has remarked that Safari sucks, and it does. In fact I think you could give Apple credit for getting Firefox its market foothold. as a safari replacement.”

Safari sucks? I guess that’s news to me and the rest of the safari users. On the mac —and err, if you’re using safari, you’re on a mac — it’s a very fast, very useable browser. Next on my list for good-times browsing is Camino. I only fire up fire up Firefox when I need to use the JS debugger or an extension, otherwise FF on the mac is like driving a potato truck through Manhattan. I’ve heard tell that FF 2.0 is a bit smoother on the mac, and I’ll give it a try when it stops killing all my extensions.

loadedguns 28 Aug 06

I agree that Firefox offers a lot more features than IE. But I am really sucked up by this talk of ‘IE sucks’.
Now, something about the firefox…I introduced all of my friends to Firefox. But now I myself am sucked up by firefox. I can’t open gmail, orkut and FIREFOX ADDONS PAGE.

I switched over to Maxthon and doing fine..