Pavel Lebedev

Firefox vs. IE: Web Analytics Perspective

Web Analytics of Most Popular Browsers

Browsers Market: Web Analytics Report

Crawling Web 2.0: Content Hunt

Other Entries

Pavel Lebedev | 2009-07-08

As I said in previous post, web analysts should be aware of the differences in usage patterns of most popular browsers to be able to understand behaviours exhibited by specific groups of visitors.

Here comes the illustration. Very simple analytics uncovers significant differences in composition of audiences that use different popular browsers. (No heavy analytics yet, although the heavy analytics of TrackSite reveals even more interesting facts, patterns and anomalies.)

First, historic introduction:

The version 7 of Internet Explorer was released in October 2006, the same month as Firefox 2.0 was released. Until then previous versions – IE6 and Firefox 1.5 – were ruling the world. Firefox 3 was released on June 17, 2008, about a year ago. And recently, the IE8 was released on March 19, 2009.

Needless to say that upgrade process have taken place within user base of each browser during that time. So, what is the result of those upgrade process? Lets see:

IE versions pie for 100 last days on July 8, 2009 (TrackSite Web Analytics):

Firefox versions pie for 100 last days on July 8, 2009 (TrackSite Web Analytics):

So, what we can see? The antiquated IE6 that was first released in 2001 and that was around before the above upgrade story begun in 2006 is still present in very "healthy" quantities – more than a quoter of all IE browsers. In striking contrast, the Firefox 1.5 that was around together with IE6 at the beginning of the upgrade story in 2006, has completely vanished, leaving only trace amounts behind, so Firefox's pie has only 2 slices versus 3 slices of IE pie.

Even more surprising! The share of Firefox 2, successor of vanished Firefox 1.5, is now 3 times smaller than that of ancient IE6. Would you believe this?

Furthermore, if we assume that recently released IE8 has absorbed only share occupied by IE7, then we can add together IE7 and IE8 to estimate the pre-IE8 share occupied by IE7 (because IE8 may ... Read more...

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Pavel Lebedev | 2009-07-06

As I said in the previous post, I have Firefox, Opera, IE, and Chrome installed on my desktop and use each of them from time to time. This post will be about some relative merits and drawbacks – as I see them – of those four most popular browsers. So lets start from the less used browser (as shares pie suggest), Chrome.

Chrome

Chrome is the browser developed by Google based on open source WebKit browser technology. Its most appealing property is simplicity and carefully designed GUI and "chrome layout", and it is a very strong appeal, in fact. In particular, I myself love that Chrome uses the window's title bar at the top for tabbing. The window's title bar is usually underutilized in most cases, and such solution saves quite a lot of precious vertical visual space (especially when working on laptops with relatively small screen).

I tried to find similar chrome layout for Firefox as extension, but failed. A couple of Firefox extensions attempt to produce similar GUI, but they luck its main feature – use of window's title bar.

Apart from more efficient use of visual space, it is perfectly intuitive and logical to have tabs bar at the window's top title bar, not where most browsers currently have it (just above the document's space). This is because in such layout specific tab visually "incapsulates" everything that relates to its content: location bar, menu commands that apply to document opened in that tab, etc. Such chrome layout is more intuitively understood at subconscious level, so it is more optimal.

Another Chrome's attraction is ultrafast new V8 JavaScript engine. It is really ultrafast. In several benchmark tests, V8 is faster than JScript of Internet Explorer (many times), SpiderMonkey of Firefox before version 3.1 (but TraceMonkey of Firefox 3.1 and above is equally fast as V8), and JavaScriptCore of Safari. And it is really very important, because Web 2.0 evolution, the advent of JavaScript Ajax libraries/frameworks ... Read more...

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Pavel Lebedev | 2009-06-29

Monitoring browsers market of the site is probably the most simple web analytics that has immediate direct value for site owner, webmaster and web analyst.

Browsers often render pages differently, and site owner (webmaster, web analyst) needs to know what site looks like for the majority of visitors. Thus, browsers most often used by visitors need to be identified. If Rich Internet Applications (RIA), JavaScript Ajax libraries/frameworks, Flash, etc., are used on the site, then browser differences may become even more significant. Even despite browser vendors target Internet standards and, on the other hand, major JavaScript Ajax frameworks (like Dojo, jQuery, MooTools, Prototype, etc.) target cross-browser compatibility, they have not yet achieved neither complete adherence to standards nor cross-browser compatibility of entire functionality (compatibility is incomplete even for a handful of most common browsers).

Thus, the only practical solution for site owners (webmasters, web analysts) is testing in at least most common browsers. (Testing complex RIA functionality in all/many browsers may be extremely time-consuming.).

This is where the knowledge of browser market among your site's visitors can bring real value.

It is important to realize, that no two sites are the same, even if they belong to the same industry. Each site is very individual, specific thing. Neither knowledge of aggregate global shares of browser market nor such shares sampled from another site or multiple sites in the industry in no way should be viewed as good proxy. Those shares vary widely depending on the composition of website audience, which in turn depends not only on the topic/industry, but also on the traffic sources, i.e. the specific way (mix of the ways) site's audience is acquired, which varies widely even within same industry.

The pie chart above reflects shares of browser market that are specific to our site, www.tracksite.ru. It do not apply to your site ... Read more...

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Pavel Lebedev | 2009-06-26

Anyone tracking search engine bots (crawlers) for a few last years has certainly noticed dramatic changes in crawling activity.

First, previously it took relatively long time for a new web site to get into the indexes of major search engines, but nowadays it is just a matter of days really. Often web analytics detects first ever visit by search engine crawler within days from the moment a brand new site was submitted (or linked from already indexed site).

Second, frequency of crawling a site by major search engines has increased substantially. It is not uncommon to see crawlers revisiting same web page several times a day. Nowadays there is an intense crawlers activity on a web site (activity that is often invisible in web analytics or, at least, not transparent to web site owners).

Furthermore, having been retrieved by crawler, new or updated web page becomes searchable by entire world (gets updated in search index) within days.

All these are the signs of Web 2.0 Era we are now living in.

Before Web 2.0 Era content was mostly static – there was no need for crawlers to revisit same web page (recrawl site) often since in most cases it did not change anyway.

Currently, things are entirely different. There are plenty of web publishing technology available that make content dynamic, easy to change, update, etc. It is now easy to publish online as never before.

In particular, the advent of blogging technology (you read a blog post now) has contributed to explosive growth of dynamic content.

In addition, the adoption of syndication feeds technology (Atom, RSS) substantially increased reach of and, hence, demand for dynamic content. The supply has followed.

As a result, web is now flooded with dynamic content.

On the other hand, web has become a true commercial venue, unleashing more and more of its economic potential. As a result, competition between search engines has increased. To be competitive, search engines need to keep their ... Read more...

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Pavel Lebedev, web analytics expert/consultant (pavellebedeff yandex.ru)

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