I remember those well. I used to anticipate seeing the new number up until they discontinued them in 2004. Here's the stats I scraped from the last one in 2003:

http://grack.com/news/2003/NewGoogleZeitgeist.html

Can you believe Mozilla was only 5% back then? I've already forgotten the days when we had to hack HTML for IE5.0 and 5.5. IE6 was considered a blessing compared to the previous versions.

IMHO, the end of 2003 was the turning point for the web. IE's usage has pretty much slipped from there until now.

"Bad news: MSIE total is approx. 90%, compared to 85% in Dec. of 2002. Where they've taken browser share from, I don't know, but it's likely from older Netscape 4 installations that have moved on."

That would be an interesting source of information indeed.
But are you sure you are going to like what you see?

The intersection with the Chrome project's development may be significant. Despite its rapid growth in the last year, by most major traffic benchmarks Chrome still represents a tiny share of the browser market. Many web development projects are built on a limited timeframe, and (sadly) time devoted to cross-browser compatibility is often a compromise that must be made. If Google Zeitgeist's browser usage data reflected what most other benchmarks seem to indicate, that could be used as strong quantitative evidence that time devoted to actively supporting and testing for Chrome would not be financially sound-- in turn, leading to slower adoption of Chrome's technologies. Hopefully, as we progress toward a more open web, such distinctions will become less significant in development decisions. </cent></cent>

The intersection with the Chrome project's development may be significant. Despite its rapid growth in the last year, by most major traffic benchmarks Chrome still represents a tiny share of the browser market.

Many web development projects are built on a limited timeframe, and (tragically) time devoted to cross-browser compatibility is often a compromise that is made. If Google Zeitgeist's browser usage data reflected what most other benchmarks seem to indicate, that could be used as strong quantitative evidence that time devoted to actively supporting and testing for Chrome would not be financially sound-- in turn, leading to slower adoption of Chrome's technologies.

Hopefully, as we progress toward a more open web, such distinctions will become less significant in development decisions. </cent></cent>

Sorry for the double-post. Didn't realize there was a delay between submitting a response and it appearing on the blog. :(

I saw this article "Yahoo! starts recommending IE8 to Firefox users" http://www.geek.com/articles/news/yahoo-starts-recommending-ie8-to-firefox-users-20090821/
Dont you think we should worry that two of the top players on the web will be unfairly supporting/recommending our competition, even if we have better product. If so, why Mozilla.Com is not filing a Anti-trust case against Yahoo-MS search merger.

At my current job, I'm the browser share advocate. I like to joke: it seems like every "big" company in the valley that has double-letters in their name has a browser now (Apple, Google, Mozilla)... except Yahoo. But I just the last post, so I think I was wrong, unless you think the requirement is that they MAKE a browser.

I would also suggest that we don't need data from the absolute largest site in the universe, we just need data from a very-large-site-that-is-very representative. What about a more "open" site, like Wikipedia?

In fairness to Yahoo, I haven't seen those ads. I also don't think that they would be very effective. Remember that there is a difference between Firefox users and IE users. IE users are by and large users who did not actually *choose* a browser; rather, one was chosen for them by the operating system. So they had essentially no decision to make. Using Firefox, on the other hand, is a pro-active decision. A user chooses to switch to it and continue to use it because of the value it provides. It is far less likely that an ad like "new safer" is going to get them to switch because they already know why they are using Firefox.

I would hazard a guess that from Google's perspective, they are not that bothered about which browsers are used more than others, only that users use Google products in general, be it via PC Firefox, Laptop IE, Opera mobile, Wii TV, etc!

As they support the view that the web should "just work", maybe they don't want to be dragged in to the "who's browser is best" discussions anymore?

Google probably does care a great deal about the browser.. If it's fast it means each client is on/off their network in the most efficient manner. By controlling the browser they're also able to deliver a more refined service which users can be assured will continue to work. Now if only they had started caring about browsers years ago we could have pummeled IE out of existence by now. The last nail in the IE coffin will however only come at the moment when financial incentive pushes MS to replace Exploder with something else. Which raises the question.. How much is controlling the browser worth?