What's the truth about browser marketshare, you ask? I guess it depends on who you ask: A survey of Web advertisement hits by AdKnowledge shows that Microsoft Internet Explorer has tied Netscape's browser in usage. AdKnowledge announced this week that its June statistics show that Netscape Navigator's marketshare has declined 8.9% to 52.2% over the past six months while Microsoft's Internet Explorer rose 9.6% to 45.6%. More telling, however, was the June usage for browsers running on Windows 95, the most popular computing platform, which was essentially even. IE users hit 51% while Navigator users stalled at 49%.
"For the first time, Explorer has eclipsed Navigator on one computer platform, Windows 95. However, ad designers need to develop ads with both browsers in mind as Microsoft is closing the gap on Netscape with respect to \[overall\] browser marketshare," said David Zinman, director of product management for AdKnowledge.
AdKnowledge says its data is culled from a sample of nearly 10 million ads served by SmartBanner across more than 1,000 sites. For more information, check out the AdKnowledge Web site
