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StatCounter and NetApplications don't even try to measure the same thing. Anyone trying to use one to argue the others numbers are wrong is an idiot.
As raw input, both monitor traffic on a number of major western websites/cdns. Neither have good coverage of the rest of the world. The difference is that StatCounter just publishes its raw numbers (possibly adjusted for Chrome's pre-fetching pages in the background - not sure initially they didn't but IIRC they eventually changed their minds). NetApplications normalizes its data by weighting it to adjust for seeing some countries a lot more than others (eg if the US is 20% of net traffic and China 25% but their data is 30% US and 5% Chinese they'd scale one by 0.67x and the other by 5x) to generate a global number.
Whose numbers are better depends on what you want to do. IF you're looking at the overall state of the net or launching a new site that you expect to have heavy traffic world wide, NetApplications is probably the best bet; if you're launching a site that you expect to have san overwhelmingly western userbase, StatCounter is better. If you've already launched your site, you should be looking at your server logs and ignoring both of them.
As a final observation; when NetApplications reports abrupt shifts in relative values (like they are below for Windows versions); it's most likely that what is actually being shown is a shift in relative weights not that 4 or 5% of the internet got new computers or upgraded OSes in the last month.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Quote: What is country level weighting, and why do you do it?
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.
As I see it does not change the relation between different browsers as the method will multiple all the data regardless of IE, Chrome or Firefox...
So how that explains that NetApplication data is the complete opposite of all other site's (not only StatCounter) results...Maybe CIA have no reliable data on all countries?
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
תפסיק לספר לה' כמה הצרות שלך גדולות, תספר לצרות שלך כמה ה' גדול!
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To the best of my knowledge, NetApplications are the only major stat counter who attempts to geographically normalize their data.
W3Schools only reports on its own traffic; all you get there is what's popular among web developers. Wikipedia's internal numbers have the same sort of narrow sample bias; and with far more content in western languages than anything else presumably has a geographically biased sample as well.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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My problem is that normalizing the data do not explain the numbers - at least I can't see how...More the app I'm working on running on about 400 web servers and the reality of them is almost identical to that of StatCounter...
I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is. (V)
תפסיק לספר לה' כמה הצרות שלך גדולות, תספר לצרות שלך כמה ה' גדול!
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You beat me to it!
cheers
Chris Maunder
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WOW.
I've seen selective reporting but that one takes the cake.
they are comparing a single version of IE to single versions of Chrome?? Chrome revs - I dunno - weekly? (at least that how it seems). IE revs...every 3 years?
Chrome 37 is Chrome 36 is Chrome 35. The practice of releasing a major revision for minor changes is stupid, but besides the point here. Chrome blows away IE in usage, and in fact blows away every other browser.
That article by WinBeta is disingenuous. Those who need to know what browsers to test for their application should be doing their own research, but good luck to all those Dev's trying to explain to their PHB that Chrome is the #1 test target in the face of a "But research shows IE is the #1 browser" assault.
Shame, WinBeta. Shame.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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I agree that it's selective, but if all the versions of chrome get combined, then why aren't the different versions of IE combined by sites like statcounter? If that were the case, then the last 12 months on statcounter would show IE > 16%, and likely closer to 25% since most of the "other 10.5%" is probably other versions of IE. That would make IE a close second to chrome and far exceeding firefox.
I'm no defender of IE, but let's be fair and consistent.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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An excellent point. The other critical piece would then be a forecast for 6 and 12 month overall usage.
For me the issue is: what versions do I need to test against. I no longer test against IE7 or below. These still make up a decent portion of general web traffic, but not a decent percentage of our web traffic. Chrome is chrome and changes to the rendering model are very few and far between (in fact I'm having trouble even thinking of the last one that broke anything).
I tend to bucket browsers into WebKit, Gecko and Trident, and then subdivide into "old" and "modern" versions. The majority of Chrome and Firefox are now modern installs due to their auto-updates. IE is now pushing auto-updates so once you're on a modern version you'll be kept up to date, but the backlog of old, way out of date installs is a drag.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Chris Maunder wrote: For me the issue is: what versions do I need to test against.
Indeed. And for an established site like CP, you'll use your own stats. As any other site should as well.
For new sites, it becomes important to know who your customers are... so choosing your browser target can sometimes be tricky.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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Chris Maunder wrote: An excellent point. The other critical piece would then be a forecast for 6 and
12 month overall usage.
The trends shown in Ars Technica's monthly browser stat articles (using Net Applications data) suggest that the answer will remain current versions of Webkit/Gecko based browsers (and optionally however many versions of long tail you're currently handling for both) and all versions of IE >=8. The former two both have solid update mechanisms for most people and the size of the long tail appears mostly fixed. The chart shows that after the initial automatic upgrade surge the long tails is barely budging. Nor is IE8. OTOH data mining your server logs could show different trends...
Last Month's[^] article becaue the current one isn't up yet. (Not entirely sure why, other than some bloviating about statistical noise and pretending it's relevant the only thing that changes from month to month are a few numbers that could be template in.)
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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it only goes to show that there are Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics.
...as a corollary to that:
There are Liars, Damn Liars and PoliticiansMarketers!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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must be from a Microsoft-centric parallel universe
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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Like an abusive partner, Microsoft says it 'loves' Linux -- when what it means is that it desperately needs Linux. It's almost as if there are multiple parts of Microsoft, all working to their own benefits (imagine that).
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It's business my friend, it's business!
You have to say what you hate to say just to attract audience.
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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codependency at it's best (or worst?).
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.-John Q. Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering.-Wernher von Braun
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.-Albert Einstein
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Hard to pay much attention to an article that begins by quoting a statement from 2001.
-
A.
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Everyone is well-aware by now that Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 have not seen the impressive adoption rate of their predecessor. Yet the duo had a particularly good run last month, finally passing 15 percent market share together, according to the latest figures from Net Applications. I worry more about the almost 3% still using Vista
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Kent Sharkey wrote: I worry more about the almost 3% still using Vista
Scary lot!
of course the Thorazine helps immensely.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.0
There's a fine line between crazy and free spirited and it's usually a prescription.
I'm currently unsupervised, I know it freaks me out too but the possibilities are endless.
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Well people adopt to a new thing lately. 
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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Kent Sharkey wrote: I worry more about the almost 3% still using Vista
My brother's one of them. He got a stinkpad for school a few weeks before Weven launched; and was too busy to order the free for the cost of shipping the disk upgrade when offered. To make helping him a bit easier I left my cheap 15.6" Acer plastic special on Vista (at that point I was almost never actually using it so meh); and eventually used the upgrade license I had on something else. About a year ago he managed to kill his laptop (dropped enough times to break the spillproof keyboard, then entered a cup of coffee into it); he was and is more or less perpetually broke so I gave him my old Acer (bought when Vista was only a few months old); and suspect he'll keep using it until he drops it enough times to kill it. At that point he's probably SoL; I doubt I'll have a spare laptop to give him and since he's back in school he won't be able to afford a new one himself.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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It’s not clear what “copresence” is just yet but it’s clear that Google is working on it. References to the project were reportedly found in the latest Google Play Services software as well as the Chromium bug tracker. 'Almost' Near field communications?
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Next major version of server-side Web development language planned for release in the next year. Which would make it a full speed faster than PHP in general
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Becoming a good programmer is incredibly difficult and it doesn’t happen quickly. "If everyone is special, then no one is."
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