I said earlier this week that IE8 will soon be a high priority update; well today I noticed that IE8 has now reach high priority update status.
Essentially this means that IE8 is now available over windows automatic update and should slowly (over the next few weeks) start replacing most IE6 and IE7 installs.
IE8 has been released, but unfortunately will not be a high priority until around the 20th April 2009.
Biggest Rise: Safari (3.09%)
Biggest Fall: Other (-2.82%)
WinXP is still very dominant, but is losing ground to Vista and other OS’s.
Biggest Rise: Vista (0.31%)
Biggest Fall: WinXP (-0.39%)
Latin America/Caribbean and North America had the same increase in Internet Penetration in March 2009. Could the gradual increase in Internet Penetration be a sign that the recession is soon to subside?
Internet Usage stayed relatively constant in relation the previous month, even though there was an increase in internet penetration.
Most coders and designers will tell you Internet Explorer (Especially IE6 below) is a pain to work with, but I tend to disagree. What most people forget is that even though IE is full of bugs and oddities everything can be fixed, with just a few lines of code.
Conditional Comments let you execute sections of code in just IE, so you can import custom CSS sheets (to deal with IE’s weird rendering engine) or special JavaScript; here is how to use conditional comments:
<!--[if IE]> This will only show for Internet Explorer (IE) <![endif]--> <!--[if !IE]> This will only show if the client is not using IE. <!--[endif]> <![if IE 6]--> Only shows on IE6 <!--[endif]> <![if lte IE 6]--> Any IE browser less than or equal to version 6. <!--[endif]> <![if gte IE 7]--> Any IE browser higher or equal to IE 7 <!--[endif]>
Just place snippets of the above code anywhere in your code. If you want more information conditional commenting take a look at the Conditional Comment Wikipedia page.
IE6 is dying slowly; maybe it’s time we drop support for it.
Biggest Rise: Other (2.29%)
Biggest Fall: Safari (-2.45%) Possibly due to new version of Safari, or that a hacker said Apple Safari is ‘easy pickings’.
WinXP is still a very dominant. Maybe Windows 7 will be its downfall.
Biggest Rise: Mac (0.9%)
Biggest Fall: WinXP (-0.51%)
Latin America/Caribbean internet penetration has grown by 4.5%
Asians seem to have a high internet usage and is expect to grow even more!
Related LinksW3C Browser Information
Global Market Share Statistics
Internet Traffic Report
The ISC Domain Survey
*This data is an average from approximately 25 differently sources (Some listed above). Feel free to use the graphs and pie charts; however a link back would be appreciated.
Here is an overview of add-ons I consider essential to any web developer or designer who uses Firefox.
Have you ever seen a really nice colour on a website and thought “That is exactly what I need”. This add-on allows you to get the details about the colour.
Websites can be very annoying to code (especially if you use notepad), this excellent add-on for Firefox allows you to edit, debug and monitor code on a web page. It’s so useful it almost needs its own post.
YSlow (For Firebug)
Ever wondered why a website is being slow? This cute little add-on (made by Yahoo) analyses a web page and tells you (in simple English) how to make it load a little faster.
Normally when I use this, I notice a big improvement in rankings on Google and Yahoo.
Sometimes (especially when coding websites) it’s important to know the size of various elements. Essentially this is like an on-screen ruler.
An essential add-on for all web masters (and power users). This useful little tool bar adds everything a web master really needs to keep on top of a website.
I hate JavaScript; luckily the geniuses down at Google seem to know how I feel. Google Gears makes time consuming JavaScript run at least 40%* faster.
View and Modify HTTP/HTTPS headers, very useful when analysing a web page and working with CURL.
* Based on my benchmarking. Performance may vary from user to user. In general Google Gears is fantastic and should be used on all computers.
