Tracking IE8: Is Market Share Receding Already?

As of 1 p.m. EDT on Friday, usage of IE8 accounted for 1.56 percent of global Internet traffic according to StatCounter Global Stats. At the time, Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter's founder and CEO, described user reaction to IE8 as "underwhelming."

After the release of IE8 last week, Microsoft thanked testers via e-mail messages and asked that they continue testing the browser for bugs. Microsoft also said it would be putting up a new feedback form in the coming months designed specifically to identify problems with IE8.

Internet Explorer 8's feedback forum has been a pile-up of mixed reviews. On the positive side, some users have championed the browser's speed of opening and other features. On the negative side, a user named Aviramoff wrote, "I have just installed IE8 and still the search option doesn't work. All I get is a blank line with no search box so what and where is the problem?" Another user, named Phil Wheeler, wrote, "I created my company's Web site using the MS Publisher 2007 template. After upgrading IE7 to IE8 my menu tabs and many important images no longer show."

Late last week, many users also tried IE8 out on Acid Test 3 from The Web Standards Project. As Everything Channel's Test Center Managing Editor, Edward Moltzen, described, "out of a possible score of 100, IE 8 rang up 20. It failed the test and it failed badly," and noted some of the Twitter reaction to the Acid 3 Test.

Microsoft has been steadily losing share of the Web browser market due to strong pushes by its three biggest browser competitors: Apple's Safari, Firefox's Mozilla and Google's Chrome. According to Net Applications, Explorer's overall share has declined to 67 percent from 75 percent in the past year.