A year ago we reviewed our web stats for TechLogon to see what technologies the readers of our website use and which operating systems, browsers, languages and countries etc are the most popular. Today we see how much has changed in the last 12 months.
First, where are our visitors mostly from?
USA – 42% (down from 60%)
UK – 9%
Canada – 4%
India – 4% (English is a subsidiary official language)
Australia – 3%
As last year, no surprise that English speaking countries are most heavily represented – 62% of all visitors come from these 5 countries. Although the number of US visitors has increased dramatically over the last 12 months, USA has reduced as a percentage of the whole simply because TechLogon has become more popular in many new countries too.
80% of visitors had their web browser language set to English – we assume the other 20% are bi-lingual or are using the Google Translate option in our sidebar.
What Web Browsers Do Our Visitors Mostly Use?
Chrome – 53% (up from 15%)
Firefox – 18% (down from 47%)
IE (Internet Explorer) – 14% (down from 28%)
Safari – 5%
Android – 4%
Huge increase in Chrome users and a corresponding collapse in Firefox and IE. Chrome market share has undoubtedly been on the rise over the last year (now the world’s most popular browser) but we also suspect that Chrome users come to TechLogon more than average because some of our Chrome articles have been heavily linked to by other tech sites.
Which Versions Of These Web Browsers Are Most Used?
As Firefox and Chrome update every 6 weeks, we’ve looked at the last week’s figures to get a representative sample:
Firefox 16 – 50%
Firefox 15 – 27%
Firefox 13- and 17+ account for the other 23%
It is worrying that only half of users are on the latest (and most secure) Firefox 16, more than a week after its release. Perhaps some Firefox users delayed upgrading from FF15 to avoid potential issues with the new version but that is no excuse for the Firefox 13- users.
IE9 – 58%
IE8 – 34%
IE7 – 5%
IE6 and IE10 – 1.5% each
Thankfully there are few visitors left on the outdated IE 6 and 7 – most will likely be visiting from work environments that have stuck with the old versions for compatibility with their corporate software.
IE10 figures in the results even before it was officially released with Windows 8 – a number of visitors were obviously running/testing the preview of Windows 8.
IE9 and IE8 have switched positions over the last year – IE9 is not available for XP which will explain its decline as Windows 7 usage has surged to become the most popular operating system. XP users stuck with IE8 as their only Microsoft option would be better off switching to Firefox or Chrome to benefit from better security and performance.
Chrome 22 – 88%
Chrome 21- and 23+ account for the other 12%
Chrome’s automatic updates are obviously doing their job well, upgrading most users to the latest (and most secure) version.
Which Operating System Is Most Used?
Windows – 83%
Mac – 6%
Android – 5%
iOS – 4%
Linux – 2%
No great surprises – we focus more on Windows than Mac/Linux simply because these percentages are typical of the home computer market where (like it or not) Windows is still king. We do run more articles on iOS and Android as their market shares are increasingly so rapidly.
What Versions Of Windows Are Most Used?
Windows 7 – 67% (up from 48%)
XP – 22% (down from 38%)
Vista – 10%
The dominance of Windows 7 exceeds even industry averages but we do aim more articles specifically at W7 than XP – and our tech-aware readers are more likely to adopt newer operating systems.
Which Version Of Adobe Flash Player Is Most Used?
11.4 – 82%
11.3 and below – 18%
We have written before on Flash Player’s vulnerability to virus attack and why you should update Flash so it is disappointing to see that 18% of readers still do not have the latest version – two months after its release. In addition to better security, 11.4 added performance improvements – it should be an urgent upgrade for anyone still clinging onto an old version.
Is Java Installed?
79% – yes
21% – no
Only 0.2% of all the websites in the world still use Java and we have written a number of times on Java security risks so it is disappointing to see that 79% of readers still have it installed when it is unnecessary for most…
Conclusion
Big winners are Chrome and Windows 7 – our stats broadly match their increased market shares. iOS and Android also enjoyed increased usage as readers switch more to mobile devices.
Big losers are the same as last year – Flash Player (if not up to date) and Java (if installed for no good reason), both putting users’ security at risk. Firefox joins them on the naughty step – 50% of users not upgrading to the latest version could be a sign that the automatic update process needs to become slicker and tougher.
