Yesterday’s article, Chrome is Now the Most-Used Browser, pointed out that according to StatCounter’s data, Chrome has edged out Internet Explorer as the most-used browser. StatCounter gets these numbers from the sites that use their analytics widget (these sites include this blog, Global Nerdy and my personal blog, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century), so while they provide an accurate picture of browser share for visitors to StatCounter-equipped sites, they might provide a skewed picture of browser share for the internet in general.
I decided to look at other sources that also track browser share and compare the trends they observe to StatCounter’s. Similar trends would be evidence that StatCounter’s numbers were a reasonable measure of browser share, while different trends would suggest that StatCounter’s numbers might need to be taken with a larger grain of salt.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many sites that publish browser share data. Aside from StatCounter, the only two other such sites that I’m aware of are W3Counter and Clicky.
Here’s W3Counter’s graph showing browser share over the past five years:
Click the graph to see the live version on W3Counter’s site.
Note the usage share trends for Internet Explorer (the blue line) and Chrome (the green line). Their slopes are pretty similar to the IE/Chrome lines in StatCounter’s graphs. The latest data on the graph is for April 2012, and if the trend continued, W3Counter just might report that Chrome has surpassed Internet Explorer when they publish their May statistics.
W3Counter’s graph has a feature that lets you see browser share at any given time by hovering the cursor over it at the time of your choosing. For April 2012, they report that IE has 28.9% of the market share, while Chrome is a mere three percent away at 25.9%:
Click the graph to see the live version on W3Counter’s site.
Clicky’s trends also show a declining IE share and a climbing Chrome share. The difference is that they’re reporting a larger lead for Internet Explorer:
Click the graph to see the live version on Clicky’s site.
If these trends continue, Clicky should be reporting Chrome as the top browser in a few months.
9 replies on “W3Counter and Clicky Say That Chrome Isn’t the Number One Browser…Yet!”
[…] I’ve posted an article showing browser usage share stats by W3Counter and Clicky. You might also find this comic […]
Good follow-up to yesterday’s article that was picked up (and properly attributed to you) by TheNextWeb!
http://thenextweb.com/google/2012/05/21/google-chrome-overtakes-internet-explorer-as-the-webs-most-used-browser/
[…] I’ve written about StatCounter’s data that suggests that Chrome is now the number one browser in terms of share. I’ve also written about data from W3Counter and Clicky indicating that Chrome isn’t the … […]
[…] This comes from StatCounter, which tracks web traffic through its own widget. It’s not a perfect data set, but it seems to be as good as any other, and most other analytics groups seem to be illustrating the same trend. […]
[…] This comes from StatCounter, which tracks web traffic through its own widget. It’s not a perfect data set, but it seems to be as good as any other, and most other analytics groups seem to be illustrating the same trend. […]
[…] This comes from StatCounter, which tracks web traffic through its own widget. It’s not a perfect data set, but it seems to be as good as any other, and most other analytics groups seem to be illustrating the same trend. […]
[…] Joey deVilla’s latest post shows that data from W3Counter and Clicky throw up different results to […]
[…] rival sources of browser data also begin to note a Chrome dominance (they’re not yet), Larry Page should probably keep the champagne on […]
[…] Joey deVilla’s latest post shows that data from W3Counter and Clicky throw up different results to […]