Just how popular is Vista today? How many people have switched from IE6 to IE7? Just what share of the browser market does Firefox have?
For answers to these questions and more it is worth regularly checking W3 Counter’s Global Stats which can be found here:
http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
These stats are generated by tracking the last 32 million unique visits to 5,500 websites that represent a broad cross section of internet traffic. From each unique visit, the web browser, operating system, country of origin and screen resolution can all be determined to produce a reasonably good picture of just what general web traffic looks like today.
From looking at the latest stats for 20/08/07 we can see that a person in the USA, running Windows XP, Internet Explorer 6 with a screen resolution of 1024×768 is your average Joe web surfer, this accounts for 6% of web users. Myself I am based in the UK, running Windows XP, Internet Explorer 7 (as my primary browser) and screen resolution of 1280×1024. Only one in a thousand computers run the same combination as I do.
But lets look at the really interesting stats.
Starting with web browsers we can see that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still dominates the market with an approx 66% share. This is not taking into account the stats for IE5, IE4 and earlier, which I am sure some systems in less developed countries are still running. However the real story here is that IE’s lead is slipping due to Firefox’s continuing popularity – Firefox versions 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 now account for approx 25% of all web browsers. Safari still has an approximate 2-3% share, however it is unclear whether Safari or Firefox dominate the browser industry for Macs.
Operating system stats show that it’s been a slow start for the brand new operating system from Microsoft – Windows Vista. Just 3.33% of the OS market in August, but recent trends show that share increasing. In May 2007 it was 2.13% and has increased by 1.2% over the past 3 months. XP still dominates, but I expect to see Vista’s share increase more rapidly over the next few years as more people buy new PCs or upgrade. Mac OS X users still account for just under 4% of all users suggesting that the marketing managers at Apple need to do more than their latest “Mac vs PC” advertising campaign to encourage more people to make the big switch.
The stats for the countries of origin offer no real suprises with the US of A leading. Germany and the UK in 2nd and 3rd place respectively and a suprising Latvia in 4th. The Chinese account for just over 2% of all users who visited the web pages in question, but recent media reports suggest this statistic is far higher (almost as dominant as the US). It is well known that the Chinese government have blocked internet sites, which could include many in these reports, or that it may be that the sites in the report are more westernised, located in the US (may be blocked), or are written in languages that Chinese web users are generally unlikely to understand – you can only speculate.
Screen resolution statistics are largely trivial, but the most common is 1024×768, which I am sure will remain dominant for many years to come. Many IT professionals, gamers and experienced computer users generally opt for higher resolutions such as 1280×1024, or widescreen resolutions such as 1280×800 or 1440×900. If any of these statistics should be taken into consideration its that 8.42% of web users are still using a low resolution of 800×600. This figure is falling slowly, in May 2007 it was 9%. While many of the systems running 800×600 may be in less developed countries, nevertheless it is important for web designers to design websites with this low resolution in mind. An example of how not to do it – http://www.hrodc.com/.
Because of the lack of legacy data, it is difficult to put some of these stats into context over the past few years, but rest assured I will be keeping track of them over time and a review of the stats will come in the shape of another blog article towards the end of the year.
If you are like me where you have to give support on several different systems and are constantly hopping desks looking for a free mac or linux, or you have several machines in front of you and you are having to switch between machines using a kvm switch you are going to love this tool synergy.
I lined up 4 Desktops and monitors with different OS that I constantly use. I then installed synergy on all machines, after 15 mins I was in control of all machines using only one mouse and keyboard and Scrolling typing and opening programs from left to right across all desktops as if the computers where welded together
Matt Cutts shows how to configure Synergy in six steps
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Ever thought you could exchange Pictures from your PDA or Camera buy simply placing your device on top of the table,
or Placing an order a la minority report style
Microsoft have finally revealed Surface Computing a technology where users intereacts with the desktop
Completly by touch.
Have you ever thought of building your own PC, but have been put off due how daunting the task maybe?
Well if you can put together a lego kit you can put together a pc from parts.
Jeff Attwood has written an excellent article he explains how to put together the components, test stability and overclocking the PC.
One of the most common questions I get asked from clients is, why do I get spam or email virus that appears to originate from inside our organization.Spammers and Viruses are becoming evermore resourceful in trying to elude us to open their emails. One of the simplest ways of getting you to open an email is spoofing email address of users we trust. There are several ways they can get hold of user’s emails the question is how you stop spammers and viruses from faking addresses.Today’s anti-spam are composed of several layers for detecting spam. One of the methods for detecting fake or spoof emails is inbound authentication and Identity verification technically known as SIDF.
How Sender ID Works
- The sender sends an e-mail message.
- The recipient’s inbound e-mail server receives the message.
- The inbound e-mail server checks which domain claims to have sent the message and checks
the DNS for the SPF record of that domain. The inbound server then determines if the IP address
of the sending e-mail server matches the IP addresses that are published in the SPF record.
E-mail messages that fail may be deleted, blocked, or sent to the Junk e-mail folder. - As a recommended option, the Sender ID result can be combined with reputation data about the
IP/domain holder. This reputation data enhances delivery decisions for all e-mail, including
messages sent from both legitimate senders and spammers which may pass the Sender ID check. - When combined with the receiving network’s anti-spam and anti-phishing technologies, the
e-mail may be delivered to the Inbox, the Junk or Quarantine folders, or may be blocked and deleted.Â
Question is, so why are fake emails still getting through?
Many small businesses do not know or still have not implemented this extra layer of security until a majority of business implement the SPF on their domains we will still continue to receive fake emails or we could opt to block all emails that have not implemented, this solution is risky as businesses could possibly lose important emails from potential clients.