December 1st, 2009
XP's usage share down, Win 7, Firefox & IE8 up
Data released by web metrics company Net Applications indicates that the release of Windows 7 to the general public has put a significant dent into Windows XP’s usage share.
For the November period, web usage of XP dropped by 1.45%, while Vista’s usage share only dropped by 0.2%. At the end of the month the state of play was as follows:
- XP: 69.03%
- Vista: 18.60%
- Win 7: 3.98%
Overall, a good month for Windows 7.
In other OS usage share news, Mac OS X usage share dropped slightly, down 0.16% to 5.11% (the third time this year that Mac has lost market share). The number in of itself isn’t all that significant, but the lost ground is. Also, Linux managed to claw back market share to end November with a 1% usage share, a spot it hasn’t held since July.
On the browser front, Firefox 3.5 the biggest winner in November, grabbing 1.26% usage share, up to 15.16%. Internet Explorer 8 is also seeing usage gains, up 1.19% to 19.31%. usage share for both IE6 and 7 slipped.
Browser state of play:
- IE: 63.61%
- Firefox: 24.74%
- Safari: 4.36%
- Chrome: 3.92%
- Opera: 2.31%
Net Applications measures operating system usage by tracking computers that visit the 40,000 sites monitored for clients, which represents a pool of about 160 million unique visitors each month. This data is then weighted based on the estimated size of each country’s Internet population.
Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
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