And the loser is... Internet Explorer

By Davey Winder
Wednesday, 29 April 2009 17:04

Technology

Want to know what the most used Windows applications are, based on a real-time survey of 75,000 software tracked volunteers? 

If you were to install some tracking software on the computers of 75,000 Windows using volunteers to monitor exactly what applications they were using, and ended up with 525 million hours of usage data covering 200,000 applications, what do you reckon the results would look like?

I have to admit that when I gave this some thought, I came to the conclusion that taking market share stats into account and the popularity of everything online there could only be one winner: Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Ding! How wrong could I be? If the results of the Wakoopa 'State of Apps' survey are to be believed then Internet Explorer is a loser not a winner in the Windows software trends stakes.

The inaugural edition of what Wakoopa promises will be a quarterly dip into Windows software trending has Mozilla Firefox sitting comfortably at the top of the most used applications tree, followed not by Internet Explorer which can only manage third place, but rather by Google Chrome in second.

Just for the record, Wakoopa ran a similar survey for Mac users and Firefox also came out top there as well, beating off Apple Safari by quite a margin.

I could not help but wonder how representative these results really are of the broad computer using public. A feeling inflamed somewhat by the fact that Google Chrome also proved 'more popular' in usage rather than usability terms than Internet Explorer.

Wakoopa reckons that 48 percent of the people it tracks are "extremely proficient with computers and software" while 88 percent of them are male, with a median age of 26.9 years. Although I cannot be sure, I suspect that if asked a whole bunch of them would agree that they are either nerds or geeks as well.

That might explain why Firefox rated at 29.83 percent overall usage on the Windows platform, with Google Chrome on 6.7 percent and Internet Explorer just 6.2 percent. So while this is a fascinating insight into the software that a small subset of Internet users prefer, it is hardly representative of the broader Internet population I fear.

Internet Explorer has much to fear from Mozilla, no doubt about that, but this survey should be taken with a very large pinch of salt when thought of in terms of being any kind of real indicator of general Windows user opinion. The fight between Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer is far from over.