Chrome use keeps growing, IE6 still more popular than Safari/Opera

There’s a few things that the 2010 trends tell us, about what works, and what’s to come.

• Microsoft has treated its Internet Explorer line similar to its Office line of products, creating entirely new platforms every couple years.  Microsoft’s insistence on recreating the browser without making noticeable forward progress has caused frustrations with corporate IT teams and web developers.  Customers weren’t presented with compelling reasons to update, and the frequent new products meant that new security threat and bugs became prevalent.  If Microsoft can settle down, create a browser that’s fashionable instead of styled after the most recent fad, (and perhaps even innovate) they could easily bring IE to the ~80-90% of PCs that come with it pre-installed. 
• Firefox has done a great job not only in maintaining its position at the top of the heap, despite Microsoft often legally challenged (versus AOL , versus United States)
• Chrome‘s doubled their usage from this same time last year, nearly 20% of the global audience.  Mainly because of simplicity, with the multi-processing tab system allows for lesser computers to epic fail (freeze) more elegantly.  Like a beautiful digitized swan.  All this means that as those older computers still hanging on to IE6, may be best served as Chrome converts when web content they’re surfing for runs the potential of being a bit too much or their PCs.  There’s still some bugs here, so it’s definitely not ready to take on the king of the open-source, Firefox.  But it’s the up-and-comer to look out for.
• Opera and Safari Our next Netscape Navigators.  Although Webkit, the technology they’re based on, will almost certainly live on through mobile in Android.

Quick visualization assuming 20 computers representing the world’s usage:

Firefox 3	Firefox 3	Firefox 3	Firefox 3	Firefox 3
Firefox 3	Firefox 3	Firefox 3	Firefox 3	Internet Explorer 8
Internet Explorer 8	Internet Explorer 8	Internet Explorer 7	Internet Explorer 7	Internet Explorer 6
Chrome 7	Chrome 6	Chrome 6	Chrome 6	Opera/Safari Combined

*Based on data from W3Schools.com

Note: There’s generally a bit of variance in every set of numbers, that’s part of the reason for the rounding in the above visualization.  w3schools has been the definitive source, and most-often referenced site for browser statistics. Below is the disclaimer on their site:

Global averages may not always be relevant to your web site. Different sites attract different audiences. Some web sites attract professional developers using professional hardware, while other sites attract hobbyists using old low spec computers.
Also be aware that many statistics may have an incomplete or faulty browser detection. It is quite common by many web-stats report programs, not to detect the newest browsers.
(The statistics above are extracted from W3Schools’ log-files, but we are also monitoring other sources around the Internet to assure the quality of these figures).