IE7 Update: Stagnant Market Share. Web Designers Not Surprised.
Seven months have passed since it was launch, yet it seems that IE7 hasn’t gained enough market share as expected. According to Computer World’s article, rival metrics firm WebSideStory reported a 31% market share for IE7 as of last week. IE6 however, still has a higher share at 46%-47%.
Other popular browsers have their corresponding market shares enumerated below:
- Firefox – 15.4%
- Safari – 4.6%
- Opera – under 1%
Market Share of Web Browsers According to Net Applications (as of May, 2007)
Compared to Internet Explorer’s total market share of 78%, the three Web browsers are still far from dominant in the Web browser market. This raises a question among Web designers. When will they finally be able to produce designs without ever having to worry about Internet Explorer? Here’s a hint. Computer World’s article mentioned of Microsoft’s commitment to support IE6 until 2014. Until Microsoft stops supporting IE6 and its older Web browsers, Internet Explorer will remain a concern.
Mozilla has already released an alpha version of Firefox 3 and Microsoft is in the works for IE8. Both Web browsers promise better support for Web standards, although Firefox has been a faithful supporter from the start. As for Internet Explorer, a reformed release is yet to be proven in IE7. Until then, IE conditional statements will continue to be an integral part of a Web designer’s workload.
<!–[if lte IE 7]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php bloginfo(’template_directory’); ?>/stylesheet-exclusively-for-ie.css" media="all" />
<![endif]–>
June 2nd, 2007 at 14:54
If by market share you mean users of IE7, I must tell you I opted for Firefox after IE7 continuously locked up both my desktop and my laptop. IE6 never did that to my computers so as an original 1st browser user of IE I never had any reason to switch to Firefox. Firefox it IS now…no time for lockups, rebooting constantly, etc.
BTW, I LOVE the design of your blog and thanks for Stumbling me with such a nice compliment!
June 2nd, 2007 at 21:14
Hello Angela,
Thanks for your remarks! Sadly, I’ll be changing the design soon, but I’m working hard to make it even better.
I did mean the number of users. Although Firefox and IE uses almost the same amount of memory, what you just mentioned is one reason why users are switching to Firefox. However, it is a misconception that IE constantly locks up computers more than Firefox. Both Web browsers, or any other browser for that matter, could cause lock-ups to a computer.
It’s also worth noting that Firefox has now doubled its market share to about 35%. This could be due to IE’s already bad reputation and the Firefox users’ enthusiast in promoting the Web browser in whatever way they can. From a Web designer’s point of view on the other hand, IE is really a HEADACHE. It lacks support for Web standards, even with IE7, that’s why Web designers need to take the extra effort of using CSS hacks to make their Webpages look similar across several browsers, including IE.
May 8th, 2009 at 20:44
Somehow, I’m also not surprised. I guess IE already had it coming. I used IE6 before, and when I switched to IE7 I experienced something not unlike what happened to Angela. Also, lots of ads from IE come popping up even though I’m not browsing any pages, which I suspect may be adware of some sort, so I’ve uninstalled IE7 and went with Firefox. So far, it hasn’t given me any problems yet, and I’m very happy with it.
July 27th, 2009 at 12:33
It seems to me interesting post…actually i was surfing net to get data related to my projects of 650-180 and 70-236 and in the meantime came here,well thx for sharing this post,and its interesting to look at the comparative analysis of these internet browsers…