Browsers and webtrends (16/01/2008 11:08)

I just looked at the new statistics for our site, and for the first time, I noticed that IE 7 is now the #1 browser here.
The list looks like this:

Browser statistics

Browser	Percent (ManagerLeague)	Percent (Global)
Internet Explorer 7	33,17 %	21,00 %
Mozilla Firefox 2	32,47 %	* 36,30 %
Internet Explorer 6	26,67 %	33,20 %
Opera 9	4,18 %	1,40 %
Mozilla Firefox 1	2,46 %	--
Safari	0,58 %	1,70 %
Netscape	0,42 %	--

* Global stats for Firefox uses a combined number for Firefox 1 and 2. We do see the total is pretty close to our own numbers though.

ManagerLeague.com VS The World
We can see that our users have been better at shifting from IE6 to IE7.
This is very good when it comes to security, and shows our users are much more sensible than the world overall.
We also have a fairly high percentage of Opera-users when compared to the rest of the world, which is another good sign that our users are sensible, more secure and eager to try new technology. Opera is a kick-ass browser, and should be considered and tried by everyone!
I was surprised to see Safari drop down to 0.58%, as it has been over 1% in previous stats when I have looked. So I am guessing we have either lost some Mac-users, or they might have converted to FireFox or Opera.
When it comes to FireFox, let me just say to all of you people who are still stuck on FireFox 1, 1.0.7, 1.5 or whatever..Upgrade to FireFox 2! There is NO reason not to.

Interesting?
You might not think these numbers are very interesting at all, and they can not possibly affect you in any way.
But they can!
For instance, when 30% of our players use a browser that prevents us from using a certain technology or browser-feature, we will probably not implement it.
Truth be told, Cross-Browser-Development has gotten a lot easier lately, but there are still dramatic issues with Internet Explorer 6.
It is kind of scary to see how a poor product from Microsoft can put on the brakes in global web-development for 10 years, and then some!

I'll try to do one of these browser-stats every now and then so we can keep a history to see any development over a longer perspective.
FireFox 3 is just around the corner now also, not that I see that as a very important part of the browser evolution, yet anyway.

Browser development
So what can we expect browsers to do in their next versions?
Well, when it comes to Internet Explorer, I doubt we will see version 8 anytime soon. So lets check back with them in 2011 and see whats going on then.

Opera is going down the path of "Lets make Opera run on basically ANYTHING", and have already made their way onto Nintendos hardware and a lot of modern mobile phones. They also wish to focus more on their Widgets, and bring forth Developer-tools to let everyone contribute by writing new widgets.
A widget is basically a small program, not unlike those running on th Sidebar of Vista, that performs certain tasks, like a clock, a newsfeed-reader, or maybe even an alerter for ManagerLeague that will let you know that you have a new message in ManagerLeague, right on your desktop!
Opera still wishes to be "lightweight" in terms of Memory Usage, and aims to keep their "Fast, safe and small" image.

FireFox has taken another direction, and seems to be focusing on the user-interface, design and user-experience.
It sounds a bit like what Vista is to XP but fair enough :)
Luckily, they will also make the memory-footprint (leaking) better, so we will hopefully not see FireFox suddenly using 650 MB of ram.
There is also a lot of improvements going in when it comes to Add-Ons and how they work with the browser.
FireFox 3 will also support some new web-standards, although I am not quite sure just which. I am guessing an upgrade to CSS at least, and maybe leetcode / ECMA as well.
Interestingly enough, they do talk about the ability to save an entire web-page to "PDF" as one of the new features, as a lot of people need this, apparently. (?)

My 2 eurocents
In my eyes, the planned browser development do not show the most exciting or revolutionary prospects, but at least we are seeing constant development both for FireFox and Opera. I do think that the browsers are now about to mature and stabilize over the next 3 years, with small steps forward in technology and standards, and that security will be one of the highest priorities.
I do hope that Opera and Firefox will continue in different directions as they do now, so we will actually have DIFFERENT browsers to chose from, who do different things with different efficiency, and that they dare to specialize and optimize. Opera certainly seems eager enough on that part, and is certainly more different from the "average browser" than FireFox / IE / <insert-any-gecko-browser-here>.
That said though, there are A LOT of less known browsers surfacing, probably a few every month, who try to be different in one way or another, with more or less success. But I think they are much too late to be picked up in this established race now, unless that can manage to be REALLY different...Which they won't be, as they are using the same rendering-engine as FireFox and 90% of them are made by people with minimal creativity (!) (Ok, thats generalization if I ever saw it, but the point still stands)

Enjoy 2008, a year which will bring us FireFox 3 (Some time in Q3 hopefully) and Opera 10 (Date unknown) but not the major differences when it comes to practical use.