Browser Wars

It's useful, especially from the vendors' points of view, to examine the "browser war" not just in terms of total market share (usage) but to slice and dice the information across versions and platforms and geographies, etc.

If you look at the major platforms, Windows and Macintosh, it's crystal clear that the browser that ships with the platform dominates.

On Windows, IE commands just under 80% of the usage.

On Mac, Safari is at just over 70% of the usage.

What's really interesting is the "second place" on each platform. On both Windows and Macintosh, Firefox holds a pretty solid share. It's about 20% on Windows and about 27% on Mac.

Even more interesting, I think, is that there really isn't a "third place" on either Mac or Windows. There's only one or two percent split among the rest of the browsers available for each platform.

So when you look at Mac, it's really just a battle between Safari and Firefox. And when you look at Windows, it's really just a battle between IE and Firefox.

The good news is that Firefox is taking significant share from the default browser on both platforms and that dynamic doesn't seem to be changing.

(Data from December 2007 – November 2008 via NetApplications