Breaking down marketshare stats

There has been a lot of commotion around browsers over last few years as corporations and humans alike become obsessed if their browser is gaining marketshare or simply fading from the limelight. But there is a serious, festering detail behind the tracking systems that are currently being used by the press (Neowin too) that needs to be talked about because moving forward, the numbers will only become more obscure as these services become more complicated in the way that they fetch data.

What is the devil in the detail, the underlying cause for confusion, the fundamental issue that we all need to understand to make us better citizens of the net? That detail is the statistics in the post processing for the collection and distribution of browser marketshare and how they can easily be manipulated, slanted, cheated, inaccurately reported or any other term you can think of to alter data with an intended purpose.

There are two primary sources of data for market share on the net, StatCounter and Net Applications. The purpose of this article is not to decide which source is better, far from it, but to provide insight in to how each source is compiled and what strengths and weaknesses each brings to the table. Simply taking either source at face value is a recipe for making uniformed decisions that lead to inaccurate information being spread based on faulty data.

Currently each service is attempting to accurately portray what is happening with browser marketshare but go about it in separate ways. Which is better? We hope to provide you with the information to make that decision for yourself.

Source : neowin

Posted in: Microsoft,News,Software