Opera and Safari in O'Reilly Network Logs
In response to some of the questions on my entry yesterday about Firefox vs. IE in O'Reilly Network Logs, Andrew Odewahn provided some further data:
I did some more digging into the "Other" category since there seemed to be a lot of interest in it. It appears that the decline was due to a steep drop in use of Opera starting in June of last year (about the time Opera 9 released). It seems like that traffic just dropped off. The rebound has been from the growth in Safari and (surprisingly, to me at least) Mozilla. The "Other Other" category is everything else except Firefox, MSIE, Mozilla, Safari, Opera, and Netscape.
Here's the graph with the details:
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Comments: 32
[07.06.07 08:01 AM]
User Agent Switcher ? (https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/59)
[07.06.07 10:27 AM]
It's just incredible ! Opera is free, not payware anymore and its market shares drop ???
Opera 9 is the best version ever released !
And for Safari on windows, people dumped it as soon as they tried it. It's the worst bêta version ever.
[07.06.07 11:27 AM]
The one thing I did notice with Opera 9 was that it broke with Flickr. that, for me at least, was reason enough to move to Firefox. In many ways, opera is still superior; but I use flickr enough for this to matter a great deal.
[07.06.07 11:38 AM]
Andrew, the latest version of Opera should work well with Opera. We've fixed the issue.
[07.06.07 12:47 PM]
the latest version of Opera should work well with Opera
Oops... I meant to say "Opera should work well with Flickr"
[07.06.07 01:16 PM]
Prior to Opera 9, Opera had spoofed as IE by default. Opera 9 no longer uses spoofing. Perhaps your logging tool doesn't identify the new Opera UA string correctly?
[07.06.07 01:47 PM]
It's interesting to see Safri had such a big jump lately. Wondering if it has something to do with Mac sales. Opera's going down is expected. The latest Opera Mini can't even read Google Reader while mobile IE and Nokia browser all work well.
[07.06.07 02:31 PM]
What would it take for you to add the one.org banner to your blog to support charity? I have added it to my own and would love to see other bloggers amplify the need to stomp out poverty.
If the activism irritates you then I understand...
James McGovern
http://duckdown.blogspot.com
[07.06.07 03:22 PM]
I wonder if the Opera's big hit is related to the release of IE7? Perhaps there were a number of Windows users who preferred Opera to IE6, but switched back to the much improved IE7 last summer/fall.
I think it makes sense as IE7 implemented most of the feature advantages that Opera had over IE6. Or at least the features that most people care about such as tabbed browsing and decent site rendering.
[07.07.07 05:44 AM]
I'm curious to know what is the interest in Safari. I have a Mac and I still cannot make the switch from Firefox to Safari . . . maybe one of these days.
[07.07.07 09:41 AM]
I'm guessing the "precipitous" drop has more to do with browser identification than anything else. I know (being a member of Opera Community) that there was no "mass exodus" during the rev to version 9. It would probably be good to look into this possibility, as this would also explain the sudden "surge" in unidentified browsers.
[07.09.07 09:27 PM]
I think that the interest in Safari is not so much the switch from Firefox to Safari as the other way around. Safari precedes FF on the mac, and therefore loyal mac users would hypothetically like to see it on the PC's they use. The idea that it is better than firefox is not so much the case, as it is just what people are used to. Does look prettier than firefox though... very nice text rendering
[07.09.07 11:27 PM]
I don't understand why Opera tanked this badly. Maybe Andrew Brown is right - it could be a problem with some high-profile site. I do understand why Safari went up. I am seeing more Macs every day, and Safari is a good browser. This morning, I tried out The Safari 3 Public Beta. The beta is already very fast and quite stable on my Mac. I tried it out on a few "browser-buster" sites I like to visit. No problems, very quick load times. The new search function is copied from Firefox, but better than the original. Leopard is going to bring more users to Mac, especially the folk who need a new computer this fall but don't want Vista.
[07.10.07 06:36 AM]
Good comment Chris Pike. That was my impulse with regards to a spare laptop with XP. Safari is running fine and fast with no visual fluff on Windows.
ALternately I have to admit that I am using Camino much more often on my Mac. My perception is, it is faster and smoother than the beta Safari 3 on OSX.
[07.12.07 08:50 AM]
people expected opera9 to include extensions and functionality they've got used to in ff+extensions. opera9 failed.
expected opera9 to render mainstream pages 100% correctly. opera9 failed.
people dont like playing in the loosing team, opera9 is the loosing team with no visible chances to be a winning team. winning team opera never was.
why use opera then? i try their newest builds, and they still dont work with google (dosc&spreadsheets, reader, gmail), yahoo, cnn.. so what good oepra is if it cant use most of top 10 pages in the web? and I DONT CARE what is the reason, for me it is opera that does not work, not a broken website, not a broken flash/wmv/qt plugin. ff works, ie works, even safari works. so it is doable. do it.
or is it world-wide conspiration to make pages break in opera?
[07.12.07 10:53 AM]
"http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp"
so opera had bigger market share in nov 2003 (1.9%) than now (1.8%)? buahaha :) that realy shows the progress..
[07.13.07 02:03 AM]
The w3schools.com stats are useless and only relevant for that particular site. A better set of stats is Net Applications which shows that Opera has gradually increased its market share since Firefox was introduced.
In many European and Asian countries Opera has 5-10% marketshare. And indeed, in its previous quarterly report, Opera explained that they saw an increase in the number of desktop users.
[07.13.07 02:05 AM]
No, Opera's market share was not higher in November 2003. Consider the source of your statistics.
[07.13.07 02:15 AM]
sid, you ask why use Opera? Maybe because different people have different needs? You may be willing to put up with extensions that keep breaking when you upgrade and which don't integrate well. I prefer a nicely integrated solution which also happens to be a smaller download, faster, and with a better security record than other browsers.
If you want extensions and such, good for you. But don't assume that everyone else is exactly like you. In fact, Safari does not have extensions and it has been a great success.
As for sites not working in Opera, that's really a pity since it would probably have worked if they stopped blocking Opera.
Firefox still fails on many sites too, but it obviously works with Google services since Firefox is the default browser for everyone at Google. But then again, the Google services I have tried in Opera work just fine. I use Gmail all the time.
It's easy to say 'it's doable, do it' if the cause of the problem is that the site blocks Opera.
And actually, Opera does do something about such sites. Opera will be set to pretend that it is FF or IE.
And guess what happens when the site doesn't know that it is actually Opera?
Yes, that's right. It won't count as Opera in browser statistics!
So basically it's sites that block Opera that lead to both problems with compatibility AND weaker stats when Opera has to work around it.
[07.13.07 03:34 AM]
i understand these points Robotica, but casual users DO NOT CARE. opera does not work, ff does. simple. their attention ends there.
it is sad, but opera is the weakest player on the market, and instead of playing along the rules stronger players set, they try to do everything on their own. problem is, that market thinks that what ff does is good, not what opera does.
btw. chat in gmail jumps up and down for me, and periodicaly hungs entire browser. and opera is SLOOOOOOOW on google pages.
[07.13.07 07:49 AM]
Opera is the strongest player in the embedded/mobile/device market, and that can help the desktop version and general branding. The company is experiencing massive growths in all business areas. 140 per cent growth for desktop alone in Q1. Hardly a losing team. Consider that Opera's market share in Europe and Asia can be up to 5-10 per cent.
What rules is it that Opera doesn't play along with? You talk about features as if they matter. They don't. Safari is even more basic than Firefox, but has gotten a lot of users.
The market doesn't think that Firefox is better than Opera. Most of the market doesn't even know about Opera so they wouldn't know. What Opera needs to do is to build its brand, and with things like Opera Mini, the Wii browser, etc., they are working on exactly that. They can't take shortcuts like Firefox did since they are an independent company and can't rely on donations and free gifts. So they have to take the long road. But Opera's market share has increased ever since Firefox was released.
Opera does work. It sounds lik you have a bad installation or something.
[07.14.07 12:07 PM]
"Opera does work. It sounds lik you have a bad installation or something"
every time something does not work in opera this excuse comes into play. it wasn't good one on the first time, it is lame after you hear it for the 1000 time. surprisingly, only opera installs are broken, other browsers are not..
[07.14.07 10:37 PM]
I love Opera, but only until v. 8.54
Opera v9 simply does destroy all.
1. I need 10 minuites to open google. Once it is opened, within 1 minute it is crasched, Opera simplky disappears.
2. Opera v. 9 does destroy my HTML files alias local website in my computer. The applet menus are scattered and bigger-widen 200% than it is supposed to be. But if I open the same html file in Firefox or IE, all are ok.
Opera 8.54 is still better than 9
[07.15.07 03:56 PM]
I'm kind of sad the the great browser like Opera lost some of it's market share. We're currently working on Opera 9.5, which will be more stable, compatible, and faster. Our lastest version. 9.22 is stable and fast, (but it's in a test build). Firefox is OK...but it's slower than IE compared to some results. Opera does work..it's your computer that's causing the problem... :P
[07.16.07 12:47 AM]
"Namfes", sounds like a problem on your end. Google works fine here.
And "haha", if you go to MozillaZine you will find plenty of stories on broken Firefox installations. So don't even try.
But why is Southern Cross, a regular Opera user, pretending that he speaks on behalf of Opera Software?
Opera hasn't lost some of its market share. If you pay attention you will know that Opera Software says that Opera has a growing number of users, and Net Application shows an increase too.
That the stats are going down for this specific site doesn't mean that this is true for all sites. Especially since we don't know whether the numbers for this site are due to not detecting Opera properly when the default useragent string was changed.
[07.16.07 02:55 AM]
"Opera hasn't lost some of its market share. If you pay attention you will know that Opera Software says that Opera has a growing number of users, and Net Application shows an increase too."
this is where statistics [or lies, if you want] comes into play - absolute numbers are growing, but percentage, market share, is stagnant, or going down. in Poland, where i live, opera was a semi-strong player for long time, always oscilating around 7%, now it is going down. and in Poland, we dont have problems with unreliable statistics, main player on our this market did REALLY good job, and both users, and site owners believe what they see there. no caching etc. differences apply.
[07.16.07 12:25 PM]
The reason why I stopped using Opera a few months back was because of the horrible lack of ad blocking. I realize that Opera can't have a full fledged integrated adblocker since that would be 'frowned upon' by other companies. They have a 'content blocker' but it really leaves a lot to be desired. That is the sole reason I switched from Opera to Firefox.
[07.17.07 07:26 AM]
@sid
I have no idea why you just quoted what I wrote to respond with something that is completely irrelevant. I simply responded to some guy claiming that Opera has lost market share based on the statistics for this site. I pointed out Net Applications and Opera Software as a source. I corrected his mistaken belief that Opera is losing market share.
And I don't give a damn about Poland. Sorry, but I don't. Net Applications is infinitely more useful to the rest of the world. I couldn't care less if some Polish super site claimed to have perfect stats, because they would be irrelevant to everyone else.
[07.21.07 03:44 AM]
you couldnt be bothered. your right to do so. but problem is, that Poland was one of the countries with biggest opera market share, we were the first to have localised opera.com page. and statistics by that company are believed by every player on the market to be reliable. they measure of course only polish sites, and not all of them, but these stats deal with caching aggresivenes [common opera dev excuse why opera looks low in stats] and are generaly more clever than mosts stat systems i saw over the net.
remember tho, that no matter what are the factors that determine certain outcome, if there is lots of them, then, by law of statistics, that outcome is going to abite gaussian distribution. so caching or no caching, results would be the same to the some point. some stats measure caching correctly, some not - irrelevant, when all of them return opera.martketshare; as 1%..
and yes, opera is loosing marketshare. just like salary without a raise. inflation is eating your money, and you earn less and less each month.
[07.22.07 03:14 AM]
"opera is loosing marketshare"
Not according to Net Applications, and according to Opera they are getting more and more users.
Funny how you consider factual explanations to be "excuses". Apparently you think everyone else is coming up with excuses just because you are doing so yourself when you are caught lying.
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Dogzilla [07.06.07 05:55 AM]
Thanks much, Tim. This nicely confirms my suspicions. I'm not surprised by the growth in Safari, but I had also noted that strange, precipitous drop in Opera in all the sites I'm responsible for and couldn't find any satisfactory explanation for it.