I wanted to see how the readers of The MKX® compare to the rest of the world once again. We have compiled statistics in 2006 and 2009, so might as well check again.
That’s right: The #1 browser around here is now Google Chrome, then Firefox, then IE (warning – disturbing domain name), and then Safari, who’s share has disturbingly fallen since we last checked in spite of growing in the Internet as a whole. A mystery.
About three and a half years ago I took a look at the browser usage statistics here in The MKX®. A lot has happened since: Safari came out for Windows, mobile browsing finally became usable with the iPhone, and Google released a fast new browser called Chrome. I think it’s about time we take another look:
Chrome came out of nowhere and in a few months has a respectable number of users (myself included).
People who don’t use Internet Explorer are smarter and better looking. Thus, in average, our readers are smarter and better looking than the rest of the world.
Opera is dying a slow, painful death.
As an interesting not, now 2.75% of all our visits are from an iPhone or iPod touch. Thanks for reading.
Safari 4 just came out of beta. I gave it a try at my work computer (a Windows XP machine) just to go back to Chrome shortly after. Now I’m back with Safari. The main reason? Text rendering. See, in Safari you can configure the browser to render its text like Mac OS X does. In my opinion, text looks a lot better in Mac OS X than it does in Windows. Sure, it’s a matter of taste; my excellent taste versus other people’s terrible taste.
To illustrate my point, I took a screenshot of the Facebook homepage. Why? Because it shows text in the English, Hebrew, and Arabic alphabet. You’ll see how Safari’s text looks much better. From left to right: Apple Safari 4, Google Chrome 2.0, Mozilla Firefox 3.0,and MS Internet Explorer 7.0:
Web browser comparison on Windows XP: Safari 4, Google Chrome 2.0, Mozilla Firefox 3.0, and MS Internet Explorer 7.0 (click to zoom)
The good people at Apple released Safari 4 beta yesterday. For those not in the know, Safari is Apple‘s web browser. According to the traffic analysis for The MKX® (more on that sometime next month), a large amount of readers are still using Internet Explorer.
At home, I’ve been using Safari for years. Before that I used Camino. At work, I had been using Firefox, but switched to Google Chrome a few months ago and liked it very much. Now I’m giving the new Safari 4 a spin both at home and at work. Call me a browser slut if you’d like, I’ve been known to use iCab and the now freeOmniweb in the past, and even IE for Mac back in the Mac OS 8 days.
I like it so far. For example, on Windows I can make the fonts look like they do on the Mac: much better – but perhaps a personal preference… from someone with better taste. I also like the new tabs (heavily borrowed from Chrome) and the fact that it will sync my bookmarks with my home computers and iPhone through my MobileMe account.
