Talk:Usage share of web browsers

NetApplications

I think that they should be removed from the stats section. Here is a quote from there FAQ. "These sample reports are intended to demonstrate the format and capability of Net Market Share reports. The data within these sample reports is either out of date or fabricated." 184.70.64.66 (talk) 15:10, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

If that's true, I agree. Feel free to remove the bogus information and move NetApplications to the Older Reports. -- Schapel (talk) 09:17, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

That sentence must be in reference to the sample reports in the FAQ page itself, like when one graphic shows 69.54% to iPhone, and 5.02% to Android. A tad outdated. While the highly dubious scaling according to somewhat arbitrary numbers for "internet population" taint the numbers, the real numbers are most probably neither outdated nor outright fabricated. 80.71.135.27 (talk) 13:09, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Source for faking

Netapplications statistics do run against common sense, with MSIE market shares that are double those of any other independent source, including wikipedia itself (and I would liek to add "and my own tracker", but will abstain); these guys [1] make a good argument of how and why they do it. I personally think their presence in the article is embarrassing, to say the least, and am about to remove them. If anybody sees it fit to reinstate them, feel free. complainer (talk) 10:24, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Reverted. Netapplications is *the* most cited source in reliable sources (3rd party) and thus *the* most notable source. Remember WP:VERIFY. Useerup (talk) 06:59, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

You realize your statement (and related edit summary) is wildly unsourced, don't you? I know wikipedia is based on authority and not on truth (I do not mean this to be polemic, it is actually what the pillars say) but you do need more than a couple of asterisks to make your point. complainer (talk) 07:31, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I do not need to source statements on the talk page. If you want to raise the bar for quoting stat collectors and require sourcing for their notability, please go ahead. You can start by deleting Wikimedia as it is not sourced *anywhere* as a RS on browser usage share. But for your convenience here is a few examples on how reputable media chose to quote netapplications:

No, but you do need to source what you write in the main article; i.e., if you decide to include, and put on the same level as the others, a counter which is notoriously biased to the point of being fictional, you should use the standards of care described in WP:fringe; even the CNN article you quote here, in spite of probably not having been written by some kind of web geek, expresses perplexities at the results. complainer (talk) 17:24, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Notoriously biased to the point of being fictional? Citation needed for that claim, please. I repeat: What matters is which source is most often used by reliable sources with meaningful editorial oversight. For what it is worth, net marketshare is the only source that considers the bias of their own sample data and tries to compensate. You may disagree on their methodology, but numerous reputable reliable sources do not. That's what matters. Useerup (talk) 17:41, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

1 - you said yourself there is no citation needed in talk pages. 2 - there is a citation up there. 3 - being cited (or mentioned) in reputable sources does not make you a reputable source: plenty of reputable sources quote the Genesis, which does not mean we should support creationism on wikipedia. As for me disagreeing on methodology, no, that's not it. I think the methodology they purport to use could somewhat work. What I think, and I am in good company, is that they are doctoring data by cherry-picking sites such as microsoft.com. Even considering all their normalizations and assumptions, there is no way in Hell that objective stats for their site can show MSIE being at twice to thrice (and Chrome being at half) the level of every other stat aggregator on Earth. complainer (talk) 18:20, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

1 - you still need to minimally justify your allegations. I supported the stance that net applications was definitively noteworthy by referring to the fact that net applications is the most often cited source for usage shares in with mainstream and computer news sources. You, on the other hand, have not supported your wild claims about bias and net applications being fictional in any way. 2 - what citation? be specific, please. 3 - yes it does. Being referred to as the reputable source by a number of tech and mainstream news organizations with real editorial oversight means exactly that. No amount of debate on Wikipedia can change the fact that the world outside Wikipedia clearly view net applications as a reliable source. That is what WP:RS is all about. As for your suspicion towards their data, please consider that *all* of the other sources are heavily biased in one form or another, e.g. mostly US sites, Wikimedia (raw data). Net applications is the only source which tries to offset the sampling bias (which probably is also why most journalists will gravitate towards that source). Useerup (talk) 18:50, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

0 - please indent properly: this makes it hard to tell who is saying what. 1 - there is a clear policy in wikipedia that says you have to follow common sense before everything else; albeit you ignored that part of my post, claiming three times the MSIE usage as any other counter is as far from common sense as one could possibly get. As for the citation I was talking about the fact that this thread is called "Source for faking" should be a clue; but let me quote something else: there’s no way of knowing whether the sites using Net Applications services are representative of the Web as a whole; in fact, they’re probably not, since 76 percent report they participate in pay-per-click programs and 43 percent claim to be commerce sites.; which comes from one of the articles you quoted. Now, thanking you for supporting my point of view, and that of anybody who has ever looked at an access counter, I'll proceed to delete the Net Application fairy tales again. complainer (talk) 07:28, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

1- Your edit simply to quash a statistic from a source which you don't like because you believe it to be biased. As I have documented, that is not a widely held position. The notability of the source is verifiable and I have provided you with a long list of references: Several reliable sources quote net applications as RS. You have offered no argument to not quote net applications beyond your personal beliefs. 2 - Furthermore, your edit leave the page in an inconsistent state. The section (Differences in measurement) just above summary section where you are edit warring contains a reference to net applications which is now an orphan. Incidentally, that section explains the different biases, which is the proper way to handle potential bias as all the sources have bias. 3 - Please restore the longstanding section until this issue has been resolved. You are engaging into edit warring. 4 - Why did you write "If anybody sees it fit to reinstate them, feel free" when you enter straight into an edit war when someone actually does just that? Useerup (talk) 5 - We now have situation where the front pages of zdnet, computerworld and several other reputable tech medias report on statistics from a source that you have decided is too biased. That situation is untenable. I will mark the section unbalanced Useerup (talk) 12:51, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't think me deleting those fantastic stats after four days and four posts on the talk page really qualifies as an edit war. The revert that occurred between your two edits was not mine (I never edit anonymously)--a clear sign that I am not the only one to believe it is biased. What I have been trying to say is, actually, that the majority of the sources you provided express doubts at the objectivity of the statistics. On the other hand, if you search "Net Applications" reliability -.net (mind the brackets and the exclusion, or you'll be swamped by MS pages), you'll find that almost no web consultant out expresses such doubt: they all think they are garbage. As for reinstatement, I suppose I expected to hear something I wasn't aware of, not to be repeated what Net Applications and Microsoft say in their press releases: I had read those already. complainer (talk) 13:04, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Great. Then you won't mind that I reverted it. Please let it stand that way until this dispute has been resolved. Useerup (talk) 13:14, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Aside from the fact that nothing whatsoever in what I wrote indicates that I don't mind, did you actually apply for conflict resolution before reverting the same edit twice in 24 hours (which, yes, borders on edit warring)? I certainly didn't receive any notification as a part involved. As for letting it stand, neither of us and, by te look of it, none of the other editors actually believes Net Application provides accurate numbers, as far as I can see: the issue is whether their particular brand of fairy tale is believed or not by the world outside wikipedia, and whether this justifies its inclusion. While I realize this is how wikipedia works, the conservative approach is leaving misleading data out of the main space. complainer (talk) 13:46, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Question: How can you defend not show net applications when net applications is the source reported frequently in tech media? The latest on <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9242054/Google_takes_second_browser_spot_on_the_back_of_mobile">computerworld's front page today</a>. I am not interested in a discussion about the sampling bias of net applications (all of the sources have sampling bias and if we were to exclude sources with sampling bias they would all have to go). I want to know why you will disregard WP:VERIFY and WP:RS. Disclosure: I would like to know this answer because this will be the central issue when I bring it to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard Useerup (talk) 13:53, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Answer: I do not defend not showing them. I defend separating a - stats by visit and stats (allegedly) by visitor; and b - fact from fiction. As a cultural phenomenon which is, as you pointed out, mentioned in many places, I do think the Net Application stats belong somewhere on wikipedia, possibly in this very same article. Where they do not belong is a table together with four other sources they directly contradict beyond any possible normalization or statistical variation. You keep throwing articles at me, but I have to ask a question myself: do you read them in their entirety? The latest one ends: Net Applications measures browser usage on smartphones, tablets and personal computers by tabulating approximately 160 million unique visitors each month who browse to [sic] the sites it monitors for customers.; even if one sees through the shaky grammar, this is really not a brilliant endorsement, now, is it? Coming to the current state of the article "Do not remove stats until the reliability of all sources has been established" is mock wikipedese. An actual reference to actual wikipedia policies would sound like "Do not insert dubious statements until the reliability of all the sources has been established"; there is no such thing as a source for removal of material, and we have no duty of granting fringe material the benefit of doubt. Incidentally, you are getting the wrong noticeboard. What you need is Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution. Bringing it to the obscure Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard means you are unilaterally assuming I am biased and you are not. In a one-to-one discussion, you simply have no right to do that; you also have no right to ask me why I am disregarding WP:VERIFY and WP:RS, because I am not: those policies impose that inserted material be verified, not that verified material be inserted. The distinction might be subtle but, just as with the Computerworld article, is clear to people who read them down to the bottom; and, having now accused me of at least four things I didn't in the least do, you might want to also read wikipedia: Wikilawyering. complainer (talk) 19:02, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Some points:

1. If the distinction unique users/page impressions is your concern then add that point to the article rather than directly deleting the stats. You obviously didn't even read this article, because the section just above the summary table where you deleted the Net Applications row makes that very point!
2. Net Applications belong in the table. It is trivial to demonstrate that Net Applications is *the* most often cited statistics by reputable sources with meaningful editorial oversight. Debate about how much or why one or more of the statistics varies from the others does not change the basic fact that month after month tech media use Net Applications as basis for their reporting.
3. If there are points to be made about potential bias of one or more of the sources, then you should have no problem finding sources for that and work the concerns into the article, with references. I will note that ALL of the sources have selection bias. Statcounter is biased towards European usage, Wikimedia is bordering self-referencing, Statcounter, clicky and Net Applications measure primarily hits on commercial sites. The only provider which attempts to compensate for bias (country bias) is Net Applications. All of the others report with whatever bias they have. So bias cannot be a reason to remove a statistics counter.
4. No, NPOV noticeboard is the correct board. We obviously disagree on the bias of these sources. Suppressing a verifiably reliable source because you don't believe it can be correct is very much a NPOV issue to me.
5. WP:VERIFY states "When reliable sources disagree, present what the various sources say, give each side its due weight, and maintain a neutral point of view.". I am not sure that there is even a disagreement between the sources (stats providers) because they do not claim to measure the same thing. But even so, it is paramount that the sources are presented. Feel free to point out the different ways the sources measure usage and how (if) they deal with potential sampling bias and what they claim to demonstrate.
6. WP:NPOV states in the very first paragraph: "Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic". In my opinion, suppressing the most often cites statistics is not representing fairly and proportionally all of the significant views. Net Applications stats are regularly cited by independent reliable sources (indeed I claim that it is the most often cited stats but that's besides the point). You want to suppress the stats. I say that would be a gross violation of NPOV. If we cannot agree I believe we should solicit opinion from the noticeboard that deals with NPOV issues. Useerup (talk) 20:29, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Useerup (talk) 20:29, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

While Net Application is seems to be "notable enough" for being quoted, I think that you're misrepresenting the bias issues. Statcounter is in fact stronger biased towards US usage than European. Their sample sizes per country, compared to the population, reveals low peneration for almost all of Asia, Africa and parts of Latin America. Low Internet penetration for large groups of people explains a lot here. Almost all European countries (except for Serbia and Iceland) have lower Statcounter penetration than the US and Canada. It is also misleading to assume a strong commercial bias; lots and lots of small noncommercial sites use the free version of Statcounter, giving the service a very broad scope. OTOH, Net Applications is very strongly biased towards commercial sites and media. They do try to adjust for country differences, but that fails for China where there is a very large reported "Internet population", which is likely a different thing that really active users of the Internet. Another issue is that a major part of Chinese Internet usage is mobile, which makes it very misleading to multiply low desktop usage statistics by a "Internet population" factor. I'd say that both Statcounter and Net Applications have very scarce data for China, making both unreliable sources for stats for this big country. At least Statcounter does not pretend that they can get to a representative number by applying a large multiplication factor. Net Applications data would be much improved by reporting China separately. 80.71.135.27 (talk) 13:27, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I just read another ComputerWorld article. It looks like Net Applications is a notable source and the article explains the different methods used. When reliable sources disagree, I believe the practice encouraged here is to report both, summarize that they vary. So netapp which reports unique users only reports that... and other which reports it reports visit counts as well. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 22:39, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't think anybody doubts that Net Applications is notable; as far as I am aware, their page is nowhere near an AfD review and I myself think it is about as notable as Harry Potter, in nature if not in how many people talk about it. The issue here is whether it is reliable. complainer (talk) 16:42, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I think it's been established in this thread that Netapplications deserves mention in the table, since reliable sources use it. The article in fact goes to some length to explain that the measurement of usage share can be difficult so we shouldn't even expect all the results to be similar. Any differences in methodology can be handled simply by disclosing them to the reader. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 19:37, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

The main reason for NetApplications' divergent statistics appears to be China. China has the largest internet population, more than double the size of America's, and, as other traffic analyzers show, IE is the most common browser in China.[2][3] According to StatCounter, IE has a 48.6 percent market share in China. But the traffic analyzers we use don't record a lot of Chinese web traffic. NetApplications seeks to make up for this by weighting data from each country by that country's internet population. While NetApplications' global IE market share of 57.6 percent is still significantly higher than what StatCounter records for China alone, and while there isn't another major country with a higher IE market share than China (IE is still #1 in the US, but has only a 40.5 percent market share, according to StatCounter), there is logic to the claim that weighting by national internet population would result in an increase in IE's market share. If you can cite a reliable source (not an opinion blog post) that provides evidence for the numbers being wrong, feel free to cite it. But that blog post was actually a case for Linux having more than 1 percent market share, and even StatCounter lumps Linux's narket share into an "other" category somewhere below Android's 1.72 percent. Pdxuser (talk) 23:40, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Or, more specifically, the main reason is that NetApplications pretends to believe the CIA factbook, which pretends to believe the Chinese government's statistics that claim 43,2% penetration of internet in a country where this is a good estimate of people with access to electricity. No matter: now we have wikipedia pretending to believe Computer World pretending to believe Microsoft pretending to believe NetApplications pretending to believe the CIA factbook pretending to believe the Chinese government. I'll pretend to assume good faith and move on.complainer (talk) 12:28, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I've just looked at this page and it really is a mess, particularly the Historical usage share section. A load of different counters saying entirely different things all shouting for attention. NetApplications clearly has a better methodology in two ways: 1. it counts visitors not hits, which is in line with the lead which talks about "percentage of visitors". 2. it weights by country. But I'm not saying that it's reliable or the one to use. What is very obvious is that the world is not homogenous in any way on this issue. e.g. in N America, IE leads Chrome by 35/31, in S America, Chrome leads IE by 61/18 and in Europe Chrome leads Firefox by 37/25. So global figures are virtually meaningless. (I'm using gs.statcounter.com for these. Asia's tricky because its stats don't add up: it says Chrome beats IE 48/25 but in China it's 29/49.) Given this, what's the point of a large number of month by month tables with percentages to 2 decimal places? They aren't giving any meaningful information about which browsers are winning and the information would be far better given graphically. Chris55 (talk) 23:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Winning what? Do they get a prize? There is value in giving decimal places so you can compare one month's values to the next, which shows whether the browser is gaining share or losing share. But I do agree that we only need 1 decimal point to show this, and there would be less information overload if the values were given quarterly rather than monthly. -- Schapel (talk) 23:53, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Well people certainly aren't interested in the losers. If they aren't interested in the winners we might as well delete the page. Having looked a little more carefully, it's obvious that the situation is changing extremely rapidly worldwide and many of these statistics are out of date, particularly those for Net Applications. In the last year something like 400 million new users have come online in China and most of them use Chrome not IE, so the IE share has dropped from 74.3% to 45.9% according to StatCounter. This drowns most of the other statistics, which is why I suggest that we need to totally reorganize these tables to emphasize the regional totals. Chris55 (talk) 17:06, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

It isn't a race. There aren't winners and losers. There are browsers. I don't think anything is happening now that hasn't been happening for quite some time. IE's share is dropping because people don't like that browser, and they do like Chrome. This sort of shift in browser usage has been happening ever since browsers first appeared. -- Schapel (talk) 14:15, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Interesting that Net Applications changed their reporting and backdated to just before Google Chrome was released. ...and every since it has maintained IE as the most used browser. Wonder where they receive their most funding Interesting that isn't it. Frankly, I'm on the side of leaving it in. Users are not stupid. 146.90.101.159 (talk) 16:29, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not particularly sure that's the issue. They document a change in how they weight countries in 2007 that includes relative usage by population which means countries like China are going to rate higher in usage statistics than they do on other direct reports (especially sites rating on stats potentially skewed by the Great Firewall). On top of that, by their own FAQ, a not insignificant portion of their statistics gathering is done on Enterprise sites( Corporate, gov, orgs, medical, etc.). In particular both of those things would heavily favor Internet Explorer and Windows XP because of the legacy. All in all that means it likely more accurately reflects what is known reality (I won't bother to document this, google, it's extremely well established) but, does not, for any value of usefulness of this information, represent effective market reality for the purposes of support or general personal usage. --Karek^words?! 09:24, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Removing the largest available and widely cited visitor stats provider on an unsubstantiated whim is ludicrous and shouldn't have been done. Thanks to those that reverted. At best it was unwise; at worst it smacks of an anti-IE bent. I see a rep from NetApplications has just kindly offered to answer any queries about their methodology below - see "Regarding Weighting and Net Applications". Psdie (talk) 18:54, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm assuming you mean me since I think I'm the only person to have done anything in that section, and the one who added it. I'm in no way associated with this company, I'm a web developer and frequently have to deal with the state of web browser usage in regards to client offerings. I added the section because there was a mild revision war going on before I edited the section I reference. --Karek^words?! 03:48, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Regarding Weighting and Net Applications

I made some changes to the methodology summary section in an attempt to more accurately reflect what Statistical Weighting actually is and why it is done. Previously the section referred to weighting as an introduction of bias and claimed it was a form of Sampling Bias which is simply incorrect. Statistical Weighting is done specifically to combat Sampling Bias, particularly when there's a known and measurable level of Sampling Bias, which is the case in Web Browser traffic to any given website when measured by local driving the traffic. There have been a number of other revisions to that section that raise some concern, in my mind, that the article is being edited with a non-neutral view towards this particular topic and, in specific the company it was addressing, in addition to there being some confusion on statistical methodology and terms. Figured if anyone is feeling particularly verbose on this topic it'd be better to discuss it here and develop a neutrally driven consensus over disputes in the section instead of individual driven edits. --Karek^words?! 10:00, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

daily browser market share stats "prove" that "Internet Explorer Users Are Only Using It Because They're Forced To At Work"

[4] Interesting. --Atlasowa (talk) 18:47, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia number do not add up (to 100%)

Do not seem to add up, here, under: "Wikimedia (April 2009 to present)".

Was just updating: [5] and [6]. Maybe kind of pointless, Wikimedia, not representative info there?

Minor point: In underlying data: [7]

Second: "Browser versions, mobile"
Mozilla 5.0 1,338 M 0.59% 104 M 0.50%
Mozilla 5.0 1,296 M 0.57% 113 M 0.54%

unexplained why in two lines (and higher up in first: "Browser versions, mobile", percentage add up but not "All requests" for millions). comp.arch (talk) 21:37, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Besides not adding up, I see now that here, Mozilla is added under Firefox. That seems to be wrong (see my second edit above, where I moved Mozilla under other, revert if wrong). All Firefox versions since 1.0 are summed up under Firefox, so Mozilla is not a default user agent of Firefox. All Chrome versions since 3.0 and MSIE since 5.01 also show up in THIS year. I wander then, what Mozilla means here. It should not be the default user agent of SeaMonkey (not sure about Camino or other Firefox-like browsers). Would people be changing the user agent string manually (some extension)? As likely to happen with non-Mozilla browsers? Note that Firefox is only 11.53% and Mozilla (5.0 mostly, 4.0 and 4.5) is a lot then at 7.21%, unexplained. comp.arch (talk) 22:11, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia stats are tricky to deal with, the data is very raw. The Mozilla problem seems to be quite recent in Aug 2012 it was 0.46% [8], a year later it had grown to 3.99%[9] and now it is 7.21%[10]. As Mozilla is a catch all for all unrecognised browsers this looks like its not recognising the some other browser. My guess is its IE 11. Looking at my personal access logs I'm seeing

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko

which has changed from the format used for previous versions

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/5.0)

I've raised Template:Bug so see if the devs can look into this.--Salix alba (talk): 10:17, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I overlooked that MSIE 11 was missing (should have known, they made a User Agent change to "like Gecko"). Hopefully the appropriate string will be identified and changed to MSIE 11 as all of Mozilla doesn't probably belong there. See my edit [11]. Here subtracting about 7% from Firefox gives a very low number. Then again IE is very low and probafly more right if added there. Note the all numbers seem a little low because of high Mobile numbers (not included in the page I'm editing). comp.arch (talk) 18:10, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Spam box!

Non-mobile web browser statistics on Wikimedia
Chrome (Blink)			43.00%
Internet Explorer (Trident)			25.80%
Firefox (Gecko)			18.22%
Safari (WebKit)			5.90%
Opera (Blink)			2.31%
Others			4.77%
Non-mobile web browser usage for Wikimedia visitors as of February 2014.

I would like to revert this edit, as a bargraph of recent Wikimedia stats seems perfectly reasonable to me as one of the many illustrations in this article. However, given that people 'adding or restoring' information have to take responsibility for it, I find that I am at a loss to see how the figures in the bargraph have been derived from those in the cited source. I wish people would stop massaging figures in this page by applying their own secret 'corrections' and 'improvements' to them. It makes it impossible for other editors either to help maintain the page, or to see when some figures are just wrong due to vandalism or honest editor error. --Nigelj (talk) 12:05, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

It was I who updated this table to the current form. Note section above about Internet Explorer 11. I don't really like massaging the data, I wish the base data was corrected. Hopefully it will be soon. Then it's another story if this is a graph we want there. See also Wikimedia section below. comp.arch (talk) 15:51, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

The world map paints the wrong picture

The world map (the first image in the article) paints a completely wrong picture. Much too black and white, or rather much too green, blue and orange. Due to the solid colours, it looks like the usage share of the other browsers in a given country is marginal.

It would be better to assign the primary colours to the biggest three and blend them, desaturating to account for other browsers. I realise the result will have less Mondriaan appeal, but it would be much better in terms of neutrality and accuracy.

If that isn't possible, it would be better to remove the image entirely.