Did A Google Earth Mistake Cause A Couple's Brutal Murder?
Tumblr 101: Tips And Tricks To Get Started
Statistics show European Microsoft Windows browser ballot screen to be useless
The browser ballot screen that Windows users in the EU have started to see since March, which was supposed to lessen the monopolistic stronghold that Internet Explorer has on browser market share, has proved to be quite useless. New data shows that the differences in browser use trends between the EU and the world from January to October are within the error margin. This is despite Opera's past claims that the browser ballot screen at one point made downloads of its browser in the EU skyrocket.
Let's take a look at the numbers (seen in the table above). IE use dropped 5.25% in Europe between January and October, and 5.92% worldwide. Firefox market share went down 1.23% in Europe and 0.14% worldwide. Chrome jumped 6.4% in Europe and 6.24% worldwide. Safari went up 0.05% in Europe and 0.8% worldwide. And so on.
Now that we've established that the browser ballot screen has done nothing to shift browser choice in Europe compared to the rest of the world, let's look at the numbers another way. IE kept dropping, which is to be expected, but Firefox market share went down too, interestingly. Chrome seems to emerge as the overall winner in the race to gain market share this year, regardless of whether you look at the numbers for Europe, North America or the whole world. Its growth percentage varies, but is still the strongest in all cases.
The stats used are from the StatCounter website.
Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsGulicOct 27th 2010 4:41PM
Your use of statistics here is flawed. The correct comparison here is not between Europe with the ballot menu and the world, but rather between Europe with the ballot menu (treatment group) and Europe without the ballot menu (control group).
A better, but imperfect, approach would be to compare European trends before and after the introduction of the ballot.
GenericOct 27th 2010 5:09PM
You are scientifically correct with your approach. I also agree on that measuring trends before and after is the only viable option as having a control group is impossible. We can't have another Europe to use as a control group and I can't think of a way that is in a natural setting. It will have to be carried out in a lab.
MyriaOct 27th 2010 4:37PM
I thought this was about giving users choice (never mind that they've always had choice), not about achieving a pre-determined result or it's "useless".
GenericOct 27th 2010 5:17PM
One thing to note is that the ballot screen is introducing to a population something that is alien to them. I recall Google interviewing random people in the street and asking them what a browser is. Most people would call it "that blue e" and perceptions are hard to shake off. The most the ballot could do is educate people about the existence of other browsers. It is up to us (mostly Firefox users) to go out there and tell people how to use the ballot and what it means to them. It is difficult but I don't see any other way. People who don't know what a browser is will probably look for "the blue e" and click on it anyway.
SilverWaveOct 27th 2010 5:25PM
It was a punishment for MS "tying" and at the time looked to be reasonable.
They were also fined so I would say fair enough... next time just up the fine :-)
Seriously though it was worth it just to see MS come up against a real power the EU and get whipped into line.
The EU told Ballmer to jump and his response was "how high".
Its also an interesting precedence.
AurrinOct 27th 2010 6:42PM
Frankly, it was delusional to think that if you just let people know that other browsers existed the floodgates would open, especially since Microsoft has put real developmental effort into IE the last few years and fixed it up. (Maybe in the days of IE6, but wake up, you're not competing against the IE of 5-8 years ago.) If people are not power-browsers, Chrome and Firefox have just about nothing compelling to offer. (And Opera has nothing at all until extensions become common) Between browsers, speed differences are small and most major features are supported universally. That's not enough of a pressure gradient to sway people from the default if they only care about, say, Gmail, Facebook and Twitter.
As long as IE is a decent default and delivers at the 90% mark, a large segment of the populace simply won't switch. Period. Don't waste your time wondering about how to capture them.
DanOct 28th 2010 5:55AM
Oddly, I've never ever seen the browser choice screen. I've installed XP, Vista and 7 several times over the last year on different computers, and as yet, this elusive beast evades my detection ;)