There is a challenge to developing websites and that is ensuring that the site looks how it should in the potential users browser.
In most cases, I suspect that one should design a website so that it works well in the main four or five browsers.
To that end, I've been looking at market share of browsers. It is interesting to note that IE is still top but still dropping its percentage very slowly. Google Chrome hasn't been out long but in the last year has grown from 1.16% to 4.04%.
I should point out that this is data from one data provider only. However, the others are very similar.
As of December 2009 the browser usage is as follows:
Internet Explorer: 63.67%
Netscape/Mozilla Firefox: 24.46%
Safari:4.41%
Chrome: 4.04%
Opera: 2.29%
On the face of it, you could be forgiven (not) for just designing the site for IE and FF which together takes up nearly 90% (88.13%). However, my feeling is that Chrome will rise very steadily over the next year or two and probably reach 15% at the expense of IE and FF. After two years? We shall see, but I don't see why 30-40% isn't doable.
Of course, this thread hasn't even attempted to look at mobile internet and the definite rise that is to come of Internet enabled phones.
I'm shocked how low googles market share is. Everyone I see using IE gets given Chrome and they all love it and tell their families. When I used to do it with Firefox they'd be more sceptical, I guess it's because it's so fast.
As well as that the number of website adds and billboard adds I've seen advertising it is huge. I saw over a dozen on a drive to Liverpool before xmas (from Swansea).
My feeling is that the market share google will gain will come mostly at the expense of IE. Firefox users are often reluctant to change as once you've got tabs browsing is easy enough and you can lose plugins by making the switch.
Tbh gaining a 4% marketshare in 1 year is hardly something I call bad.
It took less than 1 year to get a bigger share than opera and safari and safari is native on Mac's.
The only thing I am truly interested in though is seeing IE6 die as soon as possible so we can finaly stop supporting a long dead browser.
Other than that bring on the full css3 and html5 support and I'm a happy bunny :)