I’m at An Event Apart in Chicago and Eric Meyer just said that browser statistics were “worse than useless.” More specifically, the only browser share numbers that matter are the one for sites you run, not what the web at large uses.
Eric is referring to a post he wrote in 2004: “Don’t Care About Market Share.” In it he states,
Look, I’ll make this very simple for everyone. If you’re trying to figure out what browsers to support (or not) in terms of layout consistency on a given site, then the answer is very easy. Whatever the site’s access logs tell you. End. Of. Story!
He’s right. What the overall market may look like matters squat if you’re designing with standards. Your audience is much more important because if you’re doing everything right (hint: valid, accessible code) then what browsers are at your site consistently can help you plan for future changes, what media types you might want to support, etc. I hope you’re designing your site from a point beyond the, “This site best viewed with…” crap that we used to see often.
For the record, Here’s my site’s browser stats:
| Browser | Percentage |
|---|---|
| Firefox | 59.82% |
| Internet Explorer | 24.11% (55% of these are IE 7, 41% IE6, 4% IE 5) |
| Safari | 10.71% |
| Opera | 2.68% |
| Mozilla | 1.79% |
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