Web browser marketshare

[Grimace]

Does anyone know of any authoritative resources for finding browser marketshare or userbase? I have found different examples #1 and #2 that have very different results.

A component to a page that I am designing doesn't like IE6, but plays nicely with all other browsers including IE7. I'm trying to gauge what kind of impact this would have -- as in, how many people still use IE6?

 

[Mal]

The IE 6 results there aren't different enough to make a difference in your coding. There's still a heck of a lot of people out there using IE 6. Unless you can look at your personal web hosting statistics and see that you're only getting, oh, less than 3% or so IE 6 users, then I'd say you need to make it work for them. It's far more common than most other web browsers, apparently only lagging behind IE 7 in both of those (IIRK).

jW

 

[Aea]

If it's a design based problem and you're using CSS you can prefix an attribute with an underscore, which only IE6 will use. For example sometimes there's problems involved with windows horrible implementation of the box model, so sometimes css like this can be useful...

width:600px;
_width:590px;

Also, here's some stats on my website, which might be helpful to you, my users are more or less technically inclined. Also, AwStats doesn't differentiate between IE6 and IE7, so this won't be terribly helpful in that regard.

Firefox 54.3 %
MS Internet Explorer 29 %
Opera 7.7 %
Wget 5.3 % //Internal Use
Safari 1.6 %
Mozilla 1.4 %
iBrowse 0.1 %
Camino 0 % // Rounded, some use.
Netscape 0 % // Rounded, some use.

 

[md11]

As said before, that totally depends on the page you're running.
For example: If you have an apple fan-page like macrumors.com you'll get less IE6 traffic compared to a page where the average user surfs: hotmail.com.
Best will be to find out your statistics.

 

[radiantm3]

Developing for IE6 is still very important. Windows users in general tend to be very slow at upgrading.

The IE 6 results there aren't different enough to make a difference in your coding. There's still a heck of a lot of people out there using IE 6. Unless you can look at your personal web hosting statistics and see that you're only getting, oh, less than 3% or so IE 6 users, then I'd say you need to make it work for them. It's far more common than most other web browsers, apparently only lagging behind IE 7 in both of those (IIRK).

jW

Hacks aren't necessary anymore. You can feed IE6 it's own style sheet with a conditional comment.

 

[jng]

Developing for IE6 is still very important. Windows users in general tend to be very slow at upgrading.

Hacks aren't necessary anymore. You can feed IE6 it's own style sheet with a conditional comment.

Agreed.

Just use the following:

<!--[if IE 6]>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/ie.css" />
<![endif]-->

Also if you post the link maybe someone here can help you find the problem and a workaround.

 

[Grimace]

If it's a design based problem and you're using CSS you can prefix an attribute with an underscore, which only IE6 will use. For example sometimes there's problems involved with windows horrible implementation of the box model, so sometimes css like this can be useful...

width:600px;
_width:590px;

This is exactly the problem. I have limitations on what I can use (based on those who update the site) so there is a table providing the border of the content. Inside of that there is a left hand nav vertical nav menu -- then 800px of content room. (A fixed-width Flash box of 800px needs to span the top.) Every other friggin browser knows how to count up to 800! IE6 gets to 785px or so (thinking that it has reached 800px -- and it bumps it way down the page to fit *below* where the left nav-bar is. [Reduced-quality example of correct placement below]

It seems like a familiar problem to folks here. The dash model [width:600px; _width:590px;] sounds VERY promising. Is there a resource on how to implement that? (I doubt that it's as simple as "IE6 always reads "_width" and no other browsers do". THANKS SO MUCH!

 

[radiantm3]

This is exactly the problem. I have limitations on what I can use (based on those who update the site) so there is a table providing the border of the content. Inside of that there is a left hand nav vertical nav menu -- then 800px of content room. (A fixed-width Flash box of 800px needs to span the top.) Every other friggin browser knows how to count up to 800! IE6 gets to 785px or so (thinking that it has reached 800px -- and it bumps it way down the page to fit *below* where the left nav-bar is. [Reduced-quality example of correct placement below]

It seems like a familiar problem to folks here. The dash model [width:600px; _width:590px;] sounds VERY promising. Is there a resource on how to implement that? (I doubt that it's as simple as "IE6 always reads "_width" and no other browsers do". THANKS SO MUCH!

Sounds like it's the box model problem. And you should not be experiencing that issue in IE6. Did you set a doctype in your html? Otherwise IE6 goes into quirks mode (legacy) and messed up the box model. And as I and a few mentioned, css hacks should be avoided when possible. And using conditional comments for IE is the best way to solve ie bugs. But you shouldn't be having the box model problem in the first place in IE6.

 

[Grimace]

hmm....well - the problem for me is that all of the CSS is controlled via some proprietary system [referenced] much higher up in the code. I know they use a bunch of IE6 hacks used to combat other problems.

 

[epochblue]

Sounds like it's the box model problem. And you should not be experiencing that issue in IE6. Did you set a doctype in your html? Otherwise IE6 goes into quirks mode (legacy) and messed up the box model. And as I and a few mentioned, css hacks should be avoided when possible. And using conditional comments for IE is the best way to solve ie bugs. But you shouldn't be having the box model problem in the first place in IE6.

I'm glad someone else pointed this out. It's amazing how many people I've come across that don't realize this.

 

[Grimace]

[This is pretty frustrating for me. I am forced into using hacks that are referenced much higher in the code than I can get access to]

I'll approach it from my ideal solution: I have one Flash box that I would like to be 800px wide normally, but when IE6 views the page, have it be 785px wide.

If there isn't a good solution for that, I'll give up for now -- there are a lot of constraints that are lengthy to explain. I'm trying to find the cleanest solution that targets just IE6. This is the problem with pictures too. A table that is 800px wide accommodates a jpeg image that is 799 or 800px wide, but IE6 doesn't let even that fit. grrrrr....

 

[jng]

I don't understand why people want 800px wide photos anyway (unless it's a photo gallery). I always recommend designing for people with 800x600 screens anyway, which means I use a max width of 775 ish anyway.

Doesn't matter if the CSS is higher and you don't have acess to that portion. It's not pretty, but instead of using <style> you just add another attribute to a specific tag style="" and have your CSS in there like:

<h1 style="font-size: 2em;">hello!</h1>

So you could try this:

... style="_width:785px;"...

in your div or whereever.

And here's a good box model tutorial for future reference:
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200612/internet_explorer_and_the_css_box_model/

This is the first time I'm hearing that IE6 with a proper doctype should render the box model properly.

But I've always tried to avoid box model issues using some of the techniques described in tutorial. I avoid hacks cause I feel like they're lame.

Even if IE6 does the model properlly, I still hate it as a browser (esp. for not supporting PNGs. I love transparent PNGs).

 

[Eraserhead]

There is a major issue with the W3Schools figures:

W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers.

These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users.

Anyway, our data, collected from W3Schools' log-files, over a five year period, clearly shows the long and medium-term trends.

Therefore I'd go with the Hitslink figures for a more general outlook.

 

[mnkeybsness]

Hacks aren't necessary anymore. You can feed IE6 it's own style sheet with a conditional comment.

I don't understand why people think conditional comments are new... they've been around for years. It's only been since Microsoft told everyone the best way to make an IE7 or IE6 specific stylesheet that many of you heard about it.

Also, I'd trust W3Schools' stats more than "Market Share". But overall, you should always look at your audience. The more technical (or "nerdy") the audience, the more Firefox users you will have. The more Apple Fan Boys, the more Safari users you'll have. But since there will always be stragglers that are forced to use IE6 because of IT lockdown in large corporations or Universities, it will always be best to learn how to do things right and just support everyone.

 

[radiantm3]

I don't understand why people think conditional comments are new... they've been around for years. It's only been since Microsoft told everyone the best way to make an IE7 or IE6 specific stylesheet that many of you heard about it.

Who thinks they are new?

 

[Eraserhead]

Also, I'd trust W3Schools' stats more than "Market Share".

Why? That seems totally crazy.

W3Schools's stats are just for their site, so they'll have a bias towards web developers, which means the data is highly likely to be biased.

Hitslink's data is for lots of sites with a wide variety of different subjects so their data is likely to be better.

 

[Grimace]

huh, it does like the box model problem. My content is 800px wide (photo gallery!) but IE6 needs to have it be 780px or so to fit correctly.

Here is the top of my code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>


I'll keep playing around with things...thanks for all your help so far!!

 

[tomoisyourgod]

the company I work for sells bluetooth/mobile phone gadgets

approx figures are:-

72% IE6/7
20%Firefox
4%Safari
2%Opera

and then Konquerer etc...

I'll get exact figures if you want... it can depend on the website..