IE6 Countdown

Cool idea for this website, not sure if economic growth in China is a good thing, to move this browser into total obsolescence.

Probably the most alarming metric being that Internet Explorer is now at a lowly 38% with Firefox and Chrome at more than 50%.

That's sad, but, I can see why people switch when they desire a decent browser on an older Windows. And once they switch, it is harder for them to switch back even if they get a new OS. The trend will not change for a long time, regardless MS smarten up or not.

All this IE6 talk makes me want to start a worldwide campaign to go back to the basics and bring back IE4 as the default standard.

@vesuvius: 38% share depends on who is taking the stats for what market.

Netmarketshare has IE at +50% of desktop share, but basically non-existent in the Mobile space.

@elmer: I agree that anything can be proven with statistics, but where do most people spend their time computing?

I use my phone (almost tablet size) and iPad a lot, and suspect the vast majority of other users do as well, so the netmarketshare stats you posted are not clearly demonstrating net market usage, the world is no no longer just about desktops, which would reduce the IE stats even more.

@vesuvius: It's difficult to know what to make of the desktop vs. mobile situation, based on stats. The stats of screen-res sizes (regardless of the source) suggest that desktops still definitely dominate the market, but that doesn't make sense of desktop/mobile browser discrepancy. I suspect that all the stats themselves are tenuous regardless of the source.

I agree the move to mobile is an inevitable trend, but not so sure this necessarily currently represents the vast majority of users. Personally, I have a desktop and an old GSM Nokia, and am only now considering my first smartphone, with the iminent release of the Lumia 800 in my region.

@elmer: it is pretty clear in that apple have sold millions of ipads and google have sold millions of smartphones. These are mainly consumption devices using the internet heavily. I am using safari now as I type into my tablet, and Firefox on android.

Even apple have tried to create a windows browser, where microsoft ought to have made ie available for android. 

here is where i always mis-trust browser stats and browser sniffing...

go to the IE countdown page with WIndows 8 and it says you have an old version of IE!!!   DUH ?

so MS can't even get an IE version check right ??? how many other browser stats have flaws like that ??

oh guys, if you think the stat is not accurate, I would say, the stat is completely useless at capturing what is important, which is group by age rages. If you actually separate home/business users and age group, the stat is way more depressing than that.  elmer does make a good point though, the fall of IE is somewhat correlated to the fall of Winodws/Windows Monopolized Desktop computing.

@magicalclick: Actually, I think that the 'fall of desktop' is in reality an increase in mobile. I don't believe that business is replacing it's 'desktops' with 'mobile' devices ('desktop' is a misnomer, as it includes anything running a desktop O/S, including notebooks, netbooks, even servers) but I think it's probably fair to say the consumer market is abandoning this class of device, as afordable web-capable devices are becoming common-place.

@elmer:

Totally agree.