Mac share wobbles, Linux dives
November 2nd 2008
Whence we last looked at online market share data, Mac users accounted for 8.23% of those measured. Net Applications numbers for October show a small retreat to 8.21%, but the data regularly see-saws from month to month. Still, if we add in iPhone users (0.33), then OS X-powered devices account for more than 8.5% of online traffic, which is about where things were last month.
However, the percentage of traffic attributable to Linux users has fallen for a second month in a row to 0.71% in October from a high in August of 0.93%. It will be interesting to see whether or not Linux bounces back next month.
Although I can't say I'm a great fan of Linux, the more people that use *nix the better.
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On the browser front, things continue to track as they have for months with Internet Explorer inexorably losing share to Firefox, Safari, Opera and newcomer Google Chrome, which entered the survey last month in the No 4 spot.
01 Internet Explorer--71.27% (71.52%)
02 Firefox--19.97 (19.46)
03 Safari--6.57 (6.65)
04 Opera--0.75 (0.69)
05 Chrome--0.74 (0.78)
That Opera has risen back into the No 4 position would seem to bolster Opera Soft CEO Jon von Tetzchner's contention that Chrome's arrival has only served to bolster, by 20% no less, the number of people downloading his company's browser.
And, what is up with Firefox? It was predicted that the world's favorite open-source alternative to Internet Explorer would break the 20% share barrier back in July and still it lingers just South of that figure.
