Plus top 5 screen resolutions

Dec 31, 2009 08:06 GMT  ·  By

As 2009 comes to an end, our news editors are busy putting together all sorts of roundups and tops. I was curious to see how the main web browsers fared this year in terms of market share. On Softpedia, of course! We checked our 2009 web traffic analytics info and think the data is pretty interesting, so we’re going to share it with you fellow webmasters or regular readers. As a bonus, we’ve added the top 5 screen resolutions used by Softpedia visitors. Don’t forget to check out the shiny charts!

To kick things off, while the blue slice tells us that Internet Explorer is still in the lead with 44.45%, Firefox has continued its chase and has come dangerously close, at 38.75%.

With the upcoming release of Firefox 3.7 and other browsers nibbling at IE’s share, the 6% distance will probably decrease even more in 2010. The latest Internet Explorer  version (IE8) does not seem to pack what’s needed to sway users back, despite Microsoft’s efforts to innovate and also provide a much more standards compliant browser.

However, there’s a new rising star on the web browser market and it’s one we definitely cannot ignore if we look at the share trends over the course of 2009. Google’s Chrome stands at 4.66% overall (3rd place), but has had an impressive evolution from 2.8% in January to 7.3% in December. This is consistent with recent global market share reports. It simply shames long-time players such as Opera and Safari, considering this is a browser that’s a little over 1 year old. In any case, it’s safe to say that Chrome was able to get a solid following among Softpedians in a relatively short period of time.

Apple’s Safari has also gained some traction, going up from 3.7% to 5.03% towards the end of 2009 (4.43% overall in 2009). What’s very interesting is that these two seem to have taken a bite, albeit a small one, from Firefox and Opera as well, not just Internet Explorer. Over the year, Mozilla’s “champion” has gone 1.01% down from 38.89% in January to 37.88% in December, while Opera’s seemingly negligible setback of 0.18% overall has had dramatic effects: in January it was ranking 3rd with 4.48%, while the 4.3% share in December sent it to the very last place of the “big league”.

Although essentially an outcast now, Opera has seen a slight comeback towards the end of the year and, in 2010, it might benefit greatly from the upcoming 10.5 release (previews are available already)  which has kept the developers busy for quite some time now. It promises various technology improvements such as new Javascript, HTML and graphics engines.

On to display resolution stats. Although the top 5 is dominated by widescreen resolutions,  the all time favorite and veteran 1024x768 is still going strong on 1st place with 31.78%. Laptops are responsible for the 2nd place (1280x800 with 17.85%) and 4th place (1440x900 with 8.36%), while the now classic 4:3 17” and 19” desktop monitors bring 1280x1024 to the 3rd place with 13.83%.

22 and 24 inch 16:10 widescreen monitors have really emerged this year, which is why 1680x1050 is ranked 5th with 6.60% higher than 800x600, 1152x864 and other resolutions that didn’t make the top 5. This trend will certainly continue during 2010 and we might finally see 1024x768 phasing out.

As a side note, HD displays haven’t taken off yet, so to speak – only 2.21% of the Softpedia visitors cruise the Internet at 1920x1200.

That’s about it. Happy new year to all our readers and thanks for being with us in 2009!

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2009 web browser share based on Softpedia traffic
2009 screen resolutions based on Softpedia traffic
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