The turn of the tide?

Or, Lies, Damn Lies, and (browser) Statistics
As part of my day job, I'm involved in determining the browser support policy for the websites we produce. So I watch browser usage stats.

I've noticed something in the last couple of months' figures. Some sources have started to show a drop in the total market share of Internet Explorer. Only a very small drop, which could just be a statistical blip, but the other sources are also levelling off, to a greater or lesser degree.

The culprit? Well, that's where it gets fun, because there's more than one. Leading the charge¹ are Mozilla and Netscape 7, which are both gaining users steadily, but there's also a small crowd of Mozilla spin-offs, Opera and others. Apple's Safari browser is doing pretty well for something that only had its first public beta release a month ago, too. Taken individually, most of these browsers have a tiny market share, but add them together and they seem to be gaining users faster than Netscape 4 is losing them.

It looks like 2003 could be a very interesting year.

¹OK, it's actually more of a slow saunter.

[Disclaimer: browser usage statistics can mislead. Browser caches, proxy servers, proxy caches, poor browser detection, user-agent masking, cookie blocking, audience demographics of the website(s) being measured, the phase of the moon and the number you first thought of. All of these factors, and more, can screw the figures up.]

( Sources... )

speaking of browsers...

Kudos to Opera for patching five security vulnerabilities in their new version 7 browser less than a week after they were discovered.

I hate job interviews...

...and I've got one tomorrow, albeit for another job with my present employers. In some ways, my "old" job, in fact, though it's changed quite dramatically in the 16 months since I transferred to my current position.

I'm monumentally crap at any form of self-promotion, and hate even writing up a CV. In some ways, I have a head start, as I've already worked with the team, and on the code, in question (hell, I wrote the func. spec.), but in others, I'm behind, since they were specifically looking for someone with particular skills, who they would then train up in the other aspects of the job. I'm already trained in the other aspects, but lack the particular skills. :-/