IE 8 release and current web usage stats
The big news of the moment is the release of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 (IE8). IE8 was released in March of this year. A Microsoft system update is currently circulating prompting users to upgrade.
IE8 is a substantial update that is more compliant with web coding standards than previous versions. So much so that it even offers a “Compatibility View” for “older” sites. IE8 offers this description for Compatibility View: “websites designed for older browsers will often look better, and problems such as out-of-place menus, images, or text will be corrected.” If you are a site owner, you should download IE8 and test your site. The number of users will only increase over time and you want to be sure that they’re seeing your site as originally intended.
Also new with IE8 is the use of Accelerators. Just highlight a block of text and click the blue Accelerator button and you can quickly email content, define a word, map a location, etc. There’s also Enhanced Tabbed Browsing, which groups and color-codes tabs. Launching a new tab from a page maintains the tab color of the previous tab. You can then manipulate the tab groups all at once, either refreshing or closing the tab group collectively. This proves to be quite useful once you get the general idea.
The charts
As we can see from our chart, IE8 hasn’t taken over just yet. The bulk of web surfers sticking with IE6 or IE7. By the way, if you’re one of those IE6 users, upgrade now… We have other new things like fire and the wheel too! Firefox continues to come on strong and should be seriously considered when building or updating your site.
Windows continues to dominate the personal computer operating system market, accounting for 88% total. Sorry Mac users, but I have to recommend focus on the PC for site review and testing. The emerging Netbook market offers XP and the release of Windows 7, Vista’s next iteration, is around the corner, so we should see Vista drop off while XP gets an unexpected bump.
Since most browsers are becoming more compliant with web coding standards, more focus should be on your users’ screen resolution. 1024 x 768 has been the standard for some time. But you’d be hard pressed to find a new monitor that isn’t widescreen these days. That’s where the 1280 x 800 comes in. You can expect 1024 x 768 to steadily decrease while widescreen aspect ratio usage increases.
To clarify the widescreen vs. standard discussion, we have this chart:
There’s no question that standard aspect ratio is the … um … standard. But expect this to change over the next few years.
Charts Disclaimer: The information in these charts was collected from several statistic sites and the average was used here. The information is a constantly moving target and should not be considered definitive. You should always focus on your specific users and their hardware / software / settings.
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