Latest Stats as at 5/4/2014
============================

These figures cover March 2014.

This month, watch what Microsoft is up to.

All of the figures given below refer to the percentage 
of visits, not hits or bytes.  
The visits are made by humans, not robots, crawlers 
or criminals pretending to be normal surfers.

The first percentage is for the 16th to 31st March 2014, 
with five earlier figures for 2014 shown in brackets.


Operating System Market Share
==============================

Windows-7 27.9 (28.1, 27.5, 28.6, 27.1, 25.7)
Windows-8 6.6 (6.2, 6.3, 6.2, 5.4, 5.2)
XP 6.0 (6.1, 6.6, 6.7, 6.8, 6.9)
Vista 2.1 (1.9, 2.0, 2.0, 2.3, 2.3)
Pre-XP Windows 0.2 (0.5, 0.6, 0.8, 0.5, 0.5) 
Mac 9.4 (9.5, 9.7, 9.1, 8.8, 8.6)
iPhone/iPad/iPod 32.2 (32.0, 30.6, 30.3, 32.6, 34.1)
Android 13.6 (13.1, 13.1, 13.8, 14.0, 14.1)
WinPhone 0.3 (0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.3, 0.4)
Other Mobiles 1.1 (1.2, 1.2, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3)
Linux 0.5 (1.1, 2.0, 1.1, 1.0, 0.9)

Windows 8 has now passed Windows XP.  Microsoft have stopped 
supporting Widows XP, so we can expect 
a swing to Windows 8, even if people don't like it.

As I have said repeatedly, it's hard not to laugh.  When 
will there be a version of Windows 8 that the masses like,
as opposed to the desires of Microsoft's dorky designers.

Disturbingly, every second version of Windows is deemed a dud;
perhaps this good-then-bad strategy produces the maximum 
revenue to Microsoft from gullible punters. 

I have gotten busy writing routines to remove any counting of 
malicious visits from Linux boxes and from nerds claiming 
to be ancient versions of Windows prior to XP.  The latest 
results are Linux (on the desktop) 0.5% and Pre-XP 0.2%.

Otherwise I would have to count as legitimate some moron from 
the Ukraine who claimed to be Windows 3.1, Win 95, Win 98 and 
Windows XP in just two seconds and all from the one IP address.

Most of the rubbish comes from Russia, Ukraine and China,
and a few other countries renowned for their Internet 
criminality. I believe any Linux figure over 1% is a nonsense.

Desktops/Laptops 53% and Mobiles/Tablets 47% for March 2014.  

The total sample sizes above were 27096 and 27161.


Browser Breakup
===============

Safari 37.0 (37.4, 36.3, 36.1, 37.9, 39.6)
Chrome 33.5 (33.5, 33.8, 33.7, 33.0, 31.9)
IE 16.7 (16.1, 15.9, 16.5, 15.0, 15.4)
Firefox 9.3 (9.7, 10.3, 10.0, 10.6, 9.4)
Opera 2.0 (1.5, 1.5, 1.6, 1.4, 1.4)
All Others 1.4 (1.8, 2.2, 2.2, 2.1, 2.3)

The sample sizes were 27261 and 27334 visits by humans.


Browser Breakup for Desktops/Laptops 
====================================

Chrome 38.3 (39.0, 38.8, 37.8, 37.7, 36.5)
IE 31.1 (29.7, 28.6, 29.7, 28.3, 30.0)
Firefox 17.6 (17.9, 18.5, 18.2, 20.0, 18.5)
Safari 10.5 (9.9, 10.1, 10.4, 10.4, 10.8)
Opera 0.9 (1.2, 1.2, 1.1, 1.0, 1.2)
All Others 1.6 (2.4, 2.9, 2.8, 2.6, 2.9)

The desktop/laptop and phone/tablet results are quite
different.  Compare the figures above and below.

The sample sizes above were 14360 and 14566 visits by humans.


Browser Breakup for Mobiles/Tablets 
===================================

Safari 67.3 (69.6, 69.0, 67.6, 68.4, 69.2)
Chrome 28.4 (27.5, 28.0, 29.4, 28.1, 27.4)
Opera 3.0 (1.5, 1.5, 1.6, 1.6, 1.3)
IE 0.6 (0.6, 0.6, 0.7, 0.6, 0.8)
Firefox 0.2 (0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.1)
All Others 0.6 (0.6, 0.7, 0.5, 1.1, 1.2)

It's a two horse race, Safari and Chrome.  
Firefox and Internet Explorer are going badly.

The sample sizes above were 12736 and 12595 visits by humans.


Search Engines Share
==================== 

Google 81.2 (82.6, 82.7, 83.0, 84.0, 85.1)
Bing 13.3 (12.0, 11.8, 11.5, 10.9, 8.9) 
Yahoo 3.4 (3.2, 3.3, 3.3, 3.1, 4.1) 
All others 2.1 (2.2, 2.2, 2.2, 2.0, 1.9)

It looks like Microsoft is playing hard ball and making it 
difficult for Windows users to use anything but Bing.
The advertising dollars involved are enormous.

This is the lowest figure for Google I have ever recorded 
in the period 2007-2014.  Back in 2002, a sample gave
Google 48%.  Yes, and Windows 98 was on 35%. 

Note that Bing has improved of late.  
A few years ago only Google could identify the song that 
contains the words "a note came along in the mail".

The total searches in these samples were 12032 and 12074.
Results from Google include 76% of the search strings 
now encrypted, making analysis of popular search 
strings difficult.

Search strings via Bing and Yahoo are not encrypted. 
The "search engine industry" has little reason to endorse 
Google while the search strings cannot be read.

On the other hands, Google protects its users from the 
prying eyes of the NSA, CGHQ, ASIO and ASIC.

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