Opera makes inroads

Browser competition is a good thing

[tedster]

I just accepted a client and did a first analysis of their log files. Much to my happy surprise, Opera 6 has nearly 5% of their user base - number three behind IE5 and IE6 and well ahead of any version of NN.

I still don't know why, exactly. Their user base is international (predominantly US, UK, AU), relatively small and definitely not technical.

As I assume we all do, I definitely hope for more competition in the browser arena, especially now that standards support makes cross-browser work a lot easier. If mozilla can get Firebird to fly, that would be one of my choices. Safari on mac looks very promising, and of course I have a soft spot for Opera.

[DaveN]

From UK based site 60 / 40 usa/uk visitor

1 Internet Explorer - 1,033,157 --- 98.12%  
2 Others ---------------- 5,677 --- 0.53%  
3 Netscape Compatible --- 4,362 --- 0.41%  
4 Netscape Navigator ---- 9,541 --- 0.90%  
5 Opera ------------------- 114 --- 0.01%  

DaveN

[papabaer]

My stats show Opera currently registering 2.4% (neck and neck with Mozilla)--last week after a write-up in a German Tech site, my Opera stats jumped to over 5.4%. My stats program DOES record Opera users regardless of "user-agent spoofing."

DaveN, the stats you present, if not flawed, which I suspect they are, certainly do not represent the norm. IE alternative browsers are steadily gaining market share. Unless, MSIE sees a major update, I predict the beginning of a truly noticeble downward trend in IE usage.

The advantages found in alternative browsers, Standards compliance and advanced features, are slowly, but surely becoming known to a broader cross section of Internet users. The "savvy tech" has been joined by the "trendy set" and "power users." The momentum is gaining.

[contracosta]

On my site, various editions of Opera are on the map, but around 1% of hits. Note: many Opera users are masquerading as MSIE... there is an option in Opera to set this, so that poorly-designed sites which say, "You need MSIE xx or higher" will work with it. There is no way to know how many Opera hits are wrongly classified as a result.

I'm showing about 1% Opera. What's really odd (and cool!) is 3.8% hits from K-Meleon. No way! Broken down into IPs we have 1.4% of unique IPs coming in on K-Meleon. Not too bad for an upstart, as Rufus T. Firefly would say.

[mozopera]

On one of my sites (haven't checked the others), Opera is reporting about 3.23%. Mozilla and Netscape combined have a higher percentage 14.11%. The rest are using IE (the bulk) and other browsers (Konqueror, Safari, etc; each having less than 1 percentage point). Can't beat Tedster's client's 5% though. :)

[edited by: mozopera at 9:01 am (utc) on May 14, 2003]

[Sinner_G]

Did you ever try searching for the term browser at google? The ranking would be the ideal stat ranking. :)

[BlobFisk]

I have to say, papabaer, that the stats I have from one of our sites is very similar to DaveN's. The site that these stats come from is a major US brand, aimed at a very mainstream market.

Browser.......................Visits....Percentage 
Microsoft Internet Explorer...650,783...93.73%  
Netscape.......................27,596....3.97%  
Other Netscape Compatible.......9,133....1.32%  
Opera..............................94....0.01% 

March 2003 - Full list stripped for clarity.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of browser and use it nearly all the time - but I don't think that it is permeating the mainstream market quite yet. I hope it does, as it's latest release seems to be the most standards compliant browser around.

[victor]

papabaer:

My stats program DOES record Opera users regardless of "user-agent spoofing."

Any ideas on how I could get mine to do that too, please? I'd like accurate UA reports.

[WibbleWobble]

The site that these stats come from is a major US brand, aimed at a very mainstream market.

This is clearly the defining factor, in my mind.
Its still the tech-savvy who use opera or moz variants; partly because they don't fret so much about upgrading or switching client, and partly because they know what they're doing. The simpler users are happy with whatever comes installed, and those are usually also the casual shoppers of mainstream sites. Over time this will undoubtedly change, though a little marketing from Opera wouldn't go amiss.

[ricfink]

Opera could have 20% of the users out there and IE would still define the limits of what's practical. If something doesn't look good in IE or doesn't work right, it's off the table.

And it makes little difference. The shortcomings of IE may give page designers a pain but the average users are confounded by other, much larger problems.
Bad, bad interface designs, stupidly worded instructions, lack of decent indexing, lack of intuitive structure on pages and sites, these are the killers. I have watched extremely intelligent people - no strangers to computers - struggle and struggle to accomplish the simplest of things on even the most highly successful of e-commerce sites.
Considering the barriers, it's incredible these sites do well. The need is just that great, I suppose.

Which browser rules doesn't mean a damn thing.

IE is not the enemy.
We have met the enemy and they is us.

[papabaer]

The site that these stats come from is a major US brand, aimed at a very mainstream market.

The stats I am referring to come from a music review site... though there some level of tech related traffic, the majority of traffic comes from music related searches. Granted, this demographic is younger (mid-late-twenties/mean) and more up-to-date regarding tech trends. This most certainly accounts for the reported levels of Mozilla/Phoenix/Firebird, and Opera stats. Lots of Mac Safari action too... (it's GREAT to see Mac users dumping troublesome IE!).

I also get a LOT of traffic from shools.. (darned kids should be doing their homework!) and I can say NN4 is just about gone... Most school traffic I get from k-12 domains use IE6... University traffic runs the gamut.. suprising and welcomed numbers of Moz variations and Opera. Nice to see.

I strongly suspect that the stats reporting very low instances of Opera are actually recording only those Opera users with their browser set to ID as Opera (as I have mine set..), the others are marked as IE and not properly identified.

[Brett_Tabke]

What stat package are you using DaveN? Most of the better stat packages get a portion of Opera ids wrong. WebTrends, and FastStats only count opera if it is set to id as Opera. They miss the alternatives that Opera can generate such as the fake IE and Moz 5 stats.

[papabaer]

I have watched extremely intelligent people - no strangers to computers - struggle and struggle to accomplish the simplest of things on even the most highly successful of e-commerce sites.

Definitely! And yes, IE is and will be the baseline for a long long time. The nice thing is that CSS enhancements can be added for more sophisticated ueser with little addtional effort and no reduction in IE usability.

[papabaer]

Right Brett, I would wager that the vast majority of Opera users do NOT id as Opera, but go with the default... default, setting of ID as MSIE6 --- thanks to numerous instances of intentional Opera blocking. Well document instances...

[korkus2000]

I thought it was funny that my brother asked me if I had ever heard of Opera a couple of weeks ago. He had been told by a friend it was a good browser and has been using it for a couple of months. He doesn't do any web development and works for a TV station removed from the web. I was impressed he found it. He told me that he would not be returning to IE. After that Opera to me is something to take very seriously.

As far as my logs go, I get less than 1%(Atleast from browsers that say they are Opera). I get more Safari hits than Opera.

[papabaer]

Some of Opera's more well-known educational partners now include The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, Harvard Law School's Berkman Center, the University of Illinois in the United States; the University Of Darmstad and the University of Cologne, both in Germany; and the University of Cardiff, Wales.

The recent deployment of over 40,000 licenses by the University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign proves that "Opera's reception in the educational community has been absolutely fabulous," says Mary Lambert, product line manager desktop. "Many institutions are relieved to finally be able to deploy a good browser alternative campus-wide."

[opera.com ]

The above is most likely old news (2003/03/15), but it is still worth a mention.

[Sinner_G]

So now we know there would be more Opera in the stats without user agent spoofing. But is there a way to detect that (i.e. to tell someone uses Opera even if they identify as IE)?

Sinner

<edit>Ok, forget that question. Note to self: FIRST use site search, THEN ask question.</edit>

[BlobFisk]

I strongly suspect that the stats reporting very low instances of Opera are actually recording only those Opera users with their browser set to ID as Opera (as I have mine set..), the others are marked as IE and not properly identified.

That's a very good point about the Opera user-agent. The stats I quoted are from WebTrends Reporting Centre, which at the moment doesn't differentiate Opera identifying intself as IE and IE proper.

I do hope that Opera is on the up and up, or for that matter any (proper) standards compliant browser.

[DaveN]

on the ball again brett, We are webtrends analysis Suite, Advanced edition

Daven