Browser Wars: Breaking down marketshare stats

[nsane.forums]

Interpreting browser marketshare is more complex than what meets the eye. With scraping of data, filtering, and distributing all having the ability to skew the results, it's time to get informed.

There has been a lot of commotion around browsers over last few years as corporations and humans alike become obsessed if their browser is gaining marketshare or simply fading from the limelight. But there is a serious, festering detail behind the tracking systems that are currently being used by the press (Neowin too) that needs to be talked about because moving forward, the numbers will only become more obscure as these services become more complicated in the way that they fetch data.

What is the devil in the detail, the underlying cause for confusion, the fundamental issue that we all need to understand to make us better citizens of the net? That detail is the statistics in the post processing for the collection and distribution of browser marketshare and how they can easily be manipulated, slanted, cheated, inaccurately reported or any other term you can think of to alter data with an intended purpose.

There are two primary sources of data for market share on the net, StatCounter and Net Applications. The purpose of this article is not to decide which source is better, far from it, but to provide insight in to how each source is compiled and what strengths and weaknesses each brings to the table. Simply taking either source at face value is a recipe for making uniformed decisions that lead to inaccurate information being spread based on faulty data.

Currently each service is attempting to accurately portray what is happening with browser marketshare but go about it in separate ways. Which is better? We hope to provide you with the information to make that decision for yourself.

Taking a deeper dive, let’s take a look at Net Applications and how they process their data. In an attempt to remove the anomalies from the data that they collect, Net Applications actively scrubs their data to remove what it considers to be noise with the hopes of providing a higher quality of output. They also balance their data based on geoweighting but how does Net Applications geoweight? Their explanation is below:

The Net Market Share data is weighted by country. We compare our traffic to the CIA Internet Traffic by Country table, and weight our data accordingly. For example, if our global data shows that Brazil represents 2% of our traffic, and the CIA table shows Brazil to represent 4% of global Internet traffic, we will count each unique visitor from Brazil twice. This is done to balance out our global data. All regions have differing markets, and if our traffic were concentrated in one or more regions, our global data would be inappropriately affected by those regions. Country level weighting removes any bias by region.

How else is Net Applications currently scrubbing their data? As of February, Net Applications is removing pre-renders by Chrome which they state for February accounted for 4.3% of Chrome’s daily visits. Net Applications also bases their data on unique site visits instead of the absolute quantity which, in their opinion, provides a better representation of browser marketshare.

To put it simply, Net Applications takes its raw data, removes pre-rendering hits, weights the data based on population size (to achieve appropriate regional representation) and then shows it to the public. What this boils down to is that if you agree with their methodology, then this is the best look at the market data, but if you fear that their algorithms could be inaccurate or that an individual with bias scrubbing the data could easily skew it one direction, it immediately adds skepticism to the reports.

Net Applications is attempting to normalize the data, to remove the fluff that could present an inaccurate picture of the market. But, as soon as you start cleansing data, the ability to add bias is immediately present; but Net Applications does attempt to come clean about its techniques by being transparent about how it achieves its results.

StatCounter on the other hand is all about providing the raw data. From their perspective, there is no need to scrub any of the data as it should be up to the end user to decide if they feel the need to restrict the content that they provide to achieve more accurate results.

This method has several advantages and disadvantages too. One aspect is that there is no human interaction with the data; it is simply gathered and distributed which gives you a clean look at the raw data. Another advantage is that it is a true reflection of all the information gathered as it shows how browsers are interacting with websites in their natural state. But, there are also several downsides to this as well.

When looking strictly at raw data, you need to account for anomalies. Without proper review, it could be possible that if a browser adjusts the way it fetches data, it could then skew the data. For example, StatCounter does not view Chrome’s pre-rendering as an issue and as such, does not remove it from its data; a notable difference from Net Applications. Additionally, StatCounter looks at all hits, not unique, so if someone is smashing the F5 when a particular site is running slow (or millions of people press F5) it could dilute the data as it looks at all the hits and not the unique hits.

What you ultimately end up is unrefined data that has the potential for misinterpretation or deviations from the norm. While there are many “what ifs” with the data, until it’s properly combed over, like what Net Applications does, it has potential for error. But then when you look at what Net Applications does, it has the ability to skew the data unintentionally trying to normalize the content. What you end up with is unintended noise within data that you either accept or reject and if you accept the noise, you subscribe to StatCounter, if you reject, you subscribe to Net Applications.

But how data is cleaned is not the only the factor one must consider. Both services are based on a sample of the population as it is impossible to track every browser currently in use today. StatCounter boasts that their population is based on 15 billion hits a month on their 3+ million member sites while Net Applications uses 40K + websites to collect data that receive 160 million unique visits a month.

Knowing their sample sizes, StatCounter has a larger sample size than Net Applications which means you must decide if Net Applications population is representative of the whole.

Net Applications and StatCounter take two different approaches that result in two different figures for how each browser is doing in the market. Which one is better? That is for you to decide but remember this, each has its own faults and each service could be argued to the point that their data is not accurate.

It is important to pick one method and stick to it, if you bounce around between the two services your view becomes muddied and your interpretations will be flawed.

View: Original Article

[visualbuffs]

so chrome is the winner

[circaal]

The main reason chrome is winning IMO is that it is bundled with so much software that it gets installed and set as default browser. And people don't know how to change it back

-BTY

[just1acc]

Can't agree. Browser can be installed that way. But people will use what he likes ( except where they don't have an idea what a browser is). IE theory is not applicable for Opera, Firefox, Chrome. They are well known, so its really the decision of people to use chrome.

IMO chrome has much more efficiency ( not really than FF, but than Opera), and best design out there. Extensions are much more stable/reliable than Firefox platform. Opera could get more user if all websites works with them, as they work with IE, FF etc.

[keyman]

The main reason chrome is winning IMO is that it is bundled with so much software that it gets installed and set as default browser. And people don't know how to change it back

-BTY

I think so too.

[Mongoose]

I perfer FF over Chrome any day of the week

[Marik]

The main reason chrome is winning IMO is that it is bundled with so much software that it gets installed and set as default browser. And people don't know how to change it back

-BTY

completely agree.

and these stats matter to whom exactly?...well they don't matter to me because I'm used to firefox so there's no point in dumping it over some other browser just cause market shares are higher.

[grouchysmurf]

Can't agree. Browser can be installed that way. But people will use what he likes ( except where they don't have an idea what a browser is). IE theory is not applicable for Opera, Firefox, Chrome. They are well known, so its really the decision of people to use chrome.

IMO chrome has much more efficiency ( not really than FF, but than Opera), and best design out there. Extensions are much more stable/reliable than Firefox platform. Opera could get more user if all websites works with them, as they work with IE, FF etc.

I must disagree. Chrome needs much more development. The add ons for it are a joke, most seem to be half put together. I am not waving the IE flag either. Firefox, while it is not perfect, is far more preferable than the others.

[calguyhunk]

The Gecko vs Webkit debate's gotten old and rotten. To the end user, the only advantage Chrome provides over FF is speed as of now and lower memory usage. With most modern PC's boasting of at least 4GB memory, that's not as much a cause for concern today as it would have been a couple of years back.

I agree with circaal to the extent that marketing muscle does have a big impact. But to me, the start-up times for FF is a major pain. The only reason I don't use Chrome is because I hate auto-updates and the damn thing adds a bunch of tasks and services that keep coming back every time you run whatever program it is that added those in the first place.

In any case, been using FF for so long, that I don't think I'm gonna be dumping it any time soon, but FF better get it's act together.

[keyman]

Can't agree. Browser can be installed that way. But people will use what he likes ( except where they don't have an idea what a browser is). IE theory is not applicable for Opera, Firefox, Chrome. They are well known, so its really the decision of people to use chrome.

IMO chrome has much more efficiency ( not really than FF, but than Opera), and best design out there. Extensions are much more stable/reliable than Firefox platform. Opera could get more user if all websites works with them, as they work with IE, FF etc.

Chrome needs much more development. The add ons for it are a joke, most seem to be half put together.

That's exactly true. I can't imagine going without FF's add-ons.

[DKT27]

The Gecko vs Webkit debate's gotten old and rotten. To the end user, the only advantage Chrome provides over FF is speed as of now and lower memory usage. With most modern PC's boasting of at least 4GB memory, that's not as much a cause for concern today as it would have been a couple of years back.

I agree with circaal to the extent that marketing muscle does have a big impact. But to me, the start-up times for FF is a major pain. The only reason I don't use Chrome is because I hate auto-updates and the damn thing adds a bunch of tasks and services that keep coming back every time you run whatever program it is that added those in the first place.

In any case, been using FF for so long, that I don't think I'm gonna be dumping it any time soon, but FF better get it's act together.

Two points -

Firefox is also introducing background service installation from v12. Reason being that it's the only way to bypass UAC. But in Firefox's new auto update implementation, unlike Chrome, Firefox (12) asks you to allow/not allow background service during installation. Which, even if you do allow by mistake, you can easily disable it via Options > Advanced > Update > Uncheck Use a background service to install updates, etc.

As for slow startup, sometime ago Firefox had made a list of top 10 addons that used to slow down the Firefox startup. Fasterfox, Tabmixplus and Firebug are the 3 I remember. I uninstalled Fasterfox and disabled the other two. Now my Firefox starts almost instantly. :)

[calguyhunk]

Firefox is also introducing background service installation from v12. Reason being that it's the only way to bypass UAC. But in Firefox's new auto update implementation, unlike Chrome, Firefox (12) asks you to allow/not allow background service during installation. Which, even if you do allow by mistake, you can easily disable it via Options > Advanced > Update > Uncheck Use a background service to install updates, etc.

Yeah, mine's disabled alright. I'm paranoid 'bout unnecessary services, tasks etc. running in the background :P

As for slow startup, sometime ago Firefox had made a list of top 10 addons that used to slow down the Firefox startup. Fasterfox, Tabmixplus and Firebug are the 3 I remember. I uninstalled Fasterfox and disabled the other two. Now my Firefox starts almost instantly. :)

Yeah, that report was all over the netz awhile back. I've never used Fasterfox, but I did disable Xmarks, Tabmixplus and Firebug after reading that one. MemoryFox and Speedyfox helps matters as well :)