14 DAY TRIAL // China is the land where newer software solutions barely impress, no matter if we're talking about operating systems, anti-virus solutions, or browsers.
When it comes to the last category, Chinese Internet users seem to be addicted to Internet Explorer, the default browser available in Windows.
Statistics provided by market researcher StatCounter for the Chinese industry show that Internet Explorer 8 has a 36.31 percent share, enough to become the top browser in the country.
Google Chrome 21 comes second with 13.66 percent, followed by another Internet Explorer version, this time 9, with 9.95 percent.
In case you're curious to see where are the new browser versions, they're trailing behind with pretty disappointing market shares.
Internet Explorer 10, for example, is only installed on 3.69 percent of the computers connected to the Internet in China, while Chrome 26 is helping only 1.88 percent of the local users to browse the web.
Firefox is missing from these charts completely, which means that Mozilla is still having a hard time conquering the Chinese market where Internet Explorer and Chrome are still gaining the lion's share.
China is also the only country in the world that has decided to stay on Windows XP beyond its retirement date, as Microsoft plans to discontinue the operating system on April 8, 2014.
Chinese officials have contacted Redmond and asked for an official extension to Windows XP's support lifetime, saying that they only recently purchased legitimate licenses, so the transition to another operating system isn't yet possible.
Microsoft, on the other hand, said in a statement that, just like all the other users in the world, China needs to consider its options when it comes to operating systems, so Windows XP will go dark just as planned on April 8, 2014.
Of course, China is not at all pleased with it, so it remains to be seen whether the country will indeed deploy a newer operating system.