IE8 loses market share immediately after release as users downgrade

Tue Mar 24, 2009 11:32AM EDT

See Comments (47)

Well that's not supposed to happen.

Microsoft formally released Internet Explorer 8 last Thursday, an event that arrived armed with a full media blitz and several glowing reviews. Normally the release of an upgrade like that would result in millions of installations and market share immediately skyrocketing, but that's not what happened.

According to Net Applications, which monitors browser usage in near-real-time, IE8's overall share of the browser market had climbed to 2.59 percent by Sunday... but then dropped Monday morning, down to 1.86 percent.

The reason for the decline is fairly obvious, as InformationWeek notes:
"Early adopters of IE8 are switching back to the more familiar, and -- at this point -- reliable Explorer 7 browser."

Compatibility is obviously the big problem, with legions of comments piling up on message boards and blog posts about websites that are totally broken by the browser's new implementation of "standards." Messed-up design isn't the only issue, either. Some users report that IE crashes with an error during certain applications, like printing.

Of course, IE8's fortunes mirror Internet Explorer's long trend down, having dropped from 75% market share to 67% in the last 12 months, again according to Net Applications. (Alternate statistics show a much grimmer view for IE.)

But one commenter offers an alternate explanation for IE8's Monday surprise, suggesting that corporate users forced to use IE6 and IE7 add to the market share of those browsers during weekdays, and that the weekend jump for IE8 (and all other browsers) is stastically explainable that way. Interesting theory...

Comments on IE8 loses market share immediately after release as users downgrade

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  • 1 Posted by jewelryczar on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:34PM EDT Report Abuse

    The only reason I use ANY version of IE is because it's what we have at work, and IT won't let us install other browsers (for security reasons - all their custom safety software revolves around IE7). At home I use FireFox and Safari on my Mac and FireFox on my PC. I was going to download IE8 just to see, but the review I read here helped me decide to stick with FireFox.

  • 2 Posted by menospeakiespanish on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:16PM EDT Report Abuse

    Hold on... How do you know this is true? If your user agent sniffer isn't sniffing right, it can and WILL detect IE8 as IE7. See, with the new Compatibility View mode in IE8, it makes websites think its IE7, because it sort of is because then it uses its crappy engine ;) Example: IE8 - Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; Zune 3.0; OfficeLiveConnector.1.3; OfficeLivePatch.1.3; .NET CLR 3.0.30729) IE8 in compat mode: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; Zune 3.0; OfficeLiveConnector.1.3; OfficeLivePatch.1.3; .NET CLR 3.0.30729) So then how do you check to see if its NOT IE7 but IS IE8? If Trident/4.0 is in the user agent, it is IE8.

  • 3 Posted by jmarctmarc on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:37PM EDT Report Abuse

    They should move from the Northwestern Washington to the "other" Washington. Where the other failures live.

  • 4 Posted by rogueist on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:49PM EDT Report Abuse

    With a non-compliant browser like IE8 I am not surprised that any machines upgraded to IE8 were subsequently immediately downgraded. Lately, I have not found any websites that IE is required on that I visit anymore.

  • 5 Posted by snowflakehenri on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:30PM EDT Report Abuse

    I don't know what IE8 you all are using, but I don't like mine. It keeps asking me if I want to continue using Yahoo as my home page or switch to that other one. I'd like to meet the person that dreamed this stupid stuff up. My yahoo looks different. Haven't tried printing with it yet, but when I go home I will attempt. If I have any problems, I will go back to IE7. Didn't even know 8 was coming and am sorry I downloaded it.

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