Fun Facts: Techgage’s Browser and OS Usage Statistics

It’s been a while since I last took a hard look into our stats software to see where the browser/OS war on our website stands, so I figured now was a great time to do so. Although we won’t reveal actual traffic information, what we’ll show here is usage information for both web browsers and operating systems. For the most part, this information is of no real importance, so just take it for its fun-factor, rather than a gauge of the entire Internet’s usage.

During 2008, the leading web browser used to visit the site was Firefox, which isn’t too much of a surprise. However, at 51.28% usage, it isn’t exactly dominating. The second spot belonged to Internet Explorer, which captured 38.98%, while Opera took third with 4.57%. Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome took a combined 3.97%, while the rest of the usage was taken by more obscure browsers, such as Konqueror and Netscape.

As it appears, not too much has changed this year so far. Since January 1, Firefox has retained its number one spot with 51.79%, while IE suffered a slight decline to 35.80%. Opera kept hold of an almost equal share, with 4.38%. Chrome and Safari both experienced increases though, with the former at 4.09% and latter at 2.97%. Of the Safari usage, the vast majority belonged to Mac users, while Windows and the iPhone were basically even.

How about operating systems? Again, this is no surprise, but Windows took the lead by an extremely large margin, with 89.58% usage. Linux comes in second with 5.31%, while Mac OS X takes third with 4.39%. All other usage is taken up with mostly mobile browsers, such as the iPhone and iPod. Oh, and for those of you curious, of our Windows’ stats, 63.42% of users were running XP, while 32.16% were running Vista.

The year has basically just begun, and the way things are looking, these stats may change quite a bit before the year’s through. It’s likely that Internet Explorer 8 will land later this year, and with the Mac’s usage growing steadily, we may see a stark increase there as well. It’s going to be an interesting year where OS’ and browsers are concerned.