HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
Chrome 19.08%
Safari 4.73%
Opera 1.60%
Others (below 1%) 0.34%
Table 1-2
Mobile/Tablet Browser Usage
Browser
Total Market Share
Safari 65.79%
Android Browser 19.17%
Opera Mini 10.45%
BlackBerry 1.45%
Others (individually below 1%) 2.56%
Older Browsers on the Modern Web
Unfortunately, the modern web—with all its fancy new features—comes with excess baggage in the form of older
web browsers that are still in use today. Although the W3C, browser vendors, and the web community/industry are
working to push the web forward, there are many web users who are either unaware of or unable to embrace this
change.
Before looking at which of the browsers still in use today could be deemed as being old, Table 1-3 shows the break-
down of market share into individual version numbers.
Table 1-3
Desktop Browser Usage by Version Number
Browser
Total Market Share
Internet Explorer 8.0 26.65%
Internet Explorer 9.0 17.96%
Chrome 19.0 15.56%
Firefox 12 7.76%
Firefox 13 6.33%
Internet Explorer 6.0 5.92%
Safari 5.1 3.63%
Internet Explorer 7.0 3.10%
Firefox 3.6 1.38%
Opera 11.x 1.04%
Like me, you may find these statistics to be surprising. Internet Explorer 8 has the biggest market share, over 25%?
There are a few reasons for this. Internet Explorer comes packaged with Microsoft Windows, which is the most-used
operating system. Many people access the web via Internet Explorer unaware that other browsers even exist. They
also don't upgrade their browser because either they don't know that option is available or the technology they have
is too outdated to do so. You should note that Internet Explorer 9 is available only to users of Windows Vista and
Windows 7. Many users are still using Windows XP, which is restricted to Internet Explorer 8. This may explain why
it is the number one web browser, despite Internet Explorer 9 being on the market since 2011.
