OMEN
10-07-2007, 10:12 AM
Wanna download IE 7? Until today, you've had to jump through Windows Genuine Advantage's annoying validation hoop to prove your copy of Windows is legit. But in a rare instance of Microsoft loosening its copy-protection reins, the company has announced that you'll be able to get IE 7 without validation. Good for them--and good news for anyone thinks that WGA is an affront to the millions of people who pay for their copies of Windows.
Gregg Keizer's story reports that Microsoft says it's doing so to bring IE 7's better security to as many people as possible, thereby protecting the entire Windows ecosystem. In other words, by allowing people with pirated copies of Windows to upgrade, it'll obstruct viruses, worms, and other Internet attacks from spreading as rapidly as if those people used the older, less secure IE 6.
Keizer's article also raises the question of whether the new rules for IE 7 downloads are a play to increase IE's market share versus its popular open-source rival, Firefox. I don't know whether they are, and you've got to think that Microsoft probably wouldn't say they were in so many words, even if that were true. But the idea got me wondering: How fast has the world accepted IE 7 compared to IE 6, which was released with Windows XP back in 2001?
Reliable browser market share numbers are notoriously hard to come by, but I do have ready access to one source of reasonably reliable data: The traffic figures for visitors to PCWorld.com. And they show that at our site, at least, IE 7 has been relatively slow to catch on compared to its predecessor.
Of course, it's a very different browser market than it was back in 2001. Back then, it looked like IE was on its way to a truly monopolistic stranglehold on Web surfers: At PCWorld.com, more than eighty percent of visitors used some flavor of IE, and the once-mighty Netscape was at about six percent usage and slipping. In other words, IE had around fourteen times the share of its next nearest competitor.
Today, there's healthy browser competition here at our site: A little over 60 percent of visitors use various versions of IE, and 30 percent use Firefox. Safari and Opera are far behind but on the chart, with about four and two percent usage, respectively.
Given the rise of Firefox, it would have been very unlikely that IE 7 could have grabbed market share as quickly as IE 6 did back in the day, no matter how good it was. And indeed, it doesn't seem to be hurting Firefox, at least at PCWorld.com: Firefox's share has continued to grow even in the months after IE 7's release.
But here's another way of looking at things: How fast has IE 7 caught on purely in terms of stealing market share from earlier versions of IE?
We're now about eleven months past the release of IE 7. If you look at the combined total of PCWorld.com visitors who visit us via IE 7 or 6, about 54 percent of them use IE 7, and 46 percent still use IE 6. That's not too far from a fifty-fifty split.
Back in 2002, when about the same amount of time had elapsed after IE 6's release as has now passed since IE 7's, there were three versions of IE with meaningful market share: 6, 5.5, and 5. And 66 percent of visitors who used IE used version 6, compared to 34 percent who used either 5.5 or 5.
Bottom line: PCWorld.com visitors who use Internet Explorer have been slower to adopt IE 7 than they were to upgrade to IE 6. Some of them, of course, have abandoned IE altogether for Firefox or another browser; others may have decided to stick with IE 6, either through personal preference or lethargy.
Even if Microsoft doesn't care about market share versus Firefox, it's admitting that its decision to make IE 7 an easier download is about increasing the number of people in the world who use that browser. I'm going to keep an eye on our site stats in the months to come to see if there's any evidence that the move has resulted in an IE 7 adoption uptick. If there is--or even if there isn't--I'll report back here with further analysis.
PCWorld
Gregg Keizer's story reports that Microsoft says it's doing so to bring IE 7's better security to as many people as possible, thereby protecting the entire Windows ecosystem. In other words, by allowing people with pirated copies of Windows to upgrade, it'll obstruct viruses, worms, and other Internet attacks from spreading as rapidly as if those people used the older, less secure IE 6.
Keizer's article also raises the question of whether the new rules for IE 7 downloads are a play to increase IE's market share versus its popular open-source rival, Firefox. I don't know whether they are, and you've got to think that Microsoft probably wouldn't say they were in so many words, even if that were true. But the idea got me wondering: How fast has the world accepted IE 7 compared to IE 6, which was released with Windows XP back in 2001?
Reliable browser market share numbers are notoriously hard to come by, but I do have ready access to one source of reasonably reliable data: The traffic figures for visitors to PCWorld.com. And they show that at our site, at least, IE 7 has been relatively slow to catch on compared to its predecessor.
Of course, it's a very different browser market than it was back in 2001. Back then, it looked like IE was on its way to a truly monopolistic stranglehold on Web surfers: At PCWorld.com, more than eighty percent of visitors used some flavor of IE, and the once-mighty Netscape was at about six percent usage and slipping. In other words, IE had around fourteen times the share of its next nearest competitor.
Today, there's healthy browser competition here at our site: A little over 60 percent of visitors use various versions of IE, and 30 percent use Firefox. Safari and Opera are far behind but on the chart, with about four and two percent usage, respectively.
Given the rise of Firefox, it would have been very unlikely that IE 7 could have grabbed market share as quickly as IE 6 did back in the day, no matter how good it was. And indeed, it doesn't seem to be hurting Firefox, at least at PCWorld.com: Firefox's share has continued to grow even in the months after IE 7's release.
But here's another way of looking at things: How fast has IE 7 caught on purely in terms of stealing market share from earlier versions of IE?
We're now about eleven months past the release of IE 7. If you look at the combined total of PCWorld.com visitors who visit us via IE 7 or 6, about 54 percent of them use IE 7, and 46 percent still use IE 6. That's not too far from a fifty-fifty split.
Back in 2002, when about the same amount of time had elapsed after IE 6's release as has now passed since IE 7's, there were three versions of IE with meaningful market share: 6, 5.5, and 5. And 66 percent of visitors who used IE used version 6, compared to 34 percent who used either 5.5 or 5.
Bottom line: PCWorld.com visitors who use Internet Explorer have been slower to adopt IE 7 than they were to upgrade to IE 6. Some of them, of course, have abandoned IE altogether for Firefox or another browser; others may have decided to stick with IE 6, either through personal preference or lethargy.
Even if Microsoft doesn't care about market share versus Firefox, it's admitting that its decision to make IE 7 an easier download is about increasing the number of people in the world who use that browser. I'm going to keep an eye on our site stats in the months to come to see if there's any evidence that the move has resulted in an IE 7 adoption uptick. If there is--or even if there isn't--I'll report back here with further analysis.
PCWorld