Internet Explorer Browser Usage drops below 50% market share for the first time

The latest Ars Technica browser usage figures show that Internet Explorer has dropped below 50% market share for the first time - for combined browsing platforms (Desktop + Mobile)

Combined Browser Market Share October 2011

Worldwide Desktop Browser Market Share October 2011

Worldwide Mobile Browser Market Share October 2011

Here at Comrz we are an even split between Chrome and Firefox, with development preferring to work on Firefox because of its still superior developer toolset, whilst we others prefer the speed and elegance of Chrome.

We all know why IE figures have remained so high - thousand of poorly run institutions and archaic public services still tend to be running very old versions of IE - it’s quite surprising just how many of these PCs are on IE6.

I’m not sure the mobile figures entirely stack up here either - there are currently nearly as many Android handsets in global circulation as iPhones, of course several Android users favour Dolphin and Skyfire, but the Android browser figure does seem unusually low.

By now I am of course an iPhone user of many years, and as you may have read on my other blogs, don’t see myself switching to Android or Windows Mobile any time soon. As far as desktop browsing goes though, I can’t see anything better out there than Chrome - Google Chrome revolutionised the web browser in a very subtle way when it was first introduced back in September of 2008, and all the major browsers have since been busy copying Chrome’s innovations; Chrome still maintains its cutting edge by some margin as far as I am concerned.

For Affino testing purposes I run all our websites almost on a daily basis - against all 4 leading browsers - Chrome, Firefox, IE and Safari. In terms of overall user experience Chrome really stands out for me, then Firefox, then Safari and IE in bottom place. Looks like Microsoft became complacent and forgot to innovate - as is always the temptation when you are ahead of the pack. Will Apple end up doing the same thing? Or will they be able to maintain their cutting-edge innovations for another decade? Apple is quite patently terrified of Google / Android, even though a lot of Apple’s recent sofware updates (in particular iOS 5) owe a lot to previous versions of Android.