A few days ago, Ars Technica ran an article on the worldwide usage statistics of the top five browsers, according to Net Applications. Ars reported on the considerable drop in usage of Internet Explorer (which is always a boon for us web developers) and the continual gains of the other four.
The percent changes of the browsers can be seen below:
Internet Explorer: -1.26%
Firefox: +0.77%
Safari: +0.17%
Chrome: +0.33%
Opera: +0.15%
These numbers clearly show that the most dramatic changes are in Internet Explorer and Firefox, right?
Wrong.
Sure, the largest numbers of people fled Internet Explorer, and most of them picked up a shiny new copy of Firefox. But what's far more significant here is the percent change in usage relative to each browser. That shows us the actual growth rates of the browsers, even though the other statistics may show the raw people in transit. The per browser growth rates, then, are as follows:
Internet Explorer: -1.9%
Firefox: 3.4%
Safari: 4.2%
Chrome: 11.6%
Opera: 7.4%
This data paints a much different picture. What we can see here is that Chrome and Opera really have the most impressive growth in the last month, and sadly Internet Explorer's decline is still going very, very slowly. So while analyses like Ars Technica's continue to show Opera as the perennial last-place finisher, those of us Opera lovers can feel good about the fact that we are gaining compatriots at more than double the rate of Firefox.