Major Web Browsers Market Share for February 2009

New browser usage statistics are out for February from Net Applications. Net Applications’ monthly surveys are conducted by sampling browser data from some 160 million visits to websites operated by the firm’s clients. The company describes the results as “market shares,” but they do not actually measure share of market in the traditional sense of revenue or unit sales. They do, however, provide a consistent methodology by which to gauge operating system trends.  It’s currently the most reliable source of information pertaining to Web browser’s market share performance.

These are the stats Net Applications published for February 2009:

Each browser has three figures. The first figure is February market share performance expressed in percentages, the second figure represents January market share also in percentages, and the third figure is the difference between February and January. Red means a decrease  and green an increase in market share for that particular browser.  Here we go.

1. Internet Explorer: 67.51% minus 67.55% = 0.04%
2. Firefox: 21.73% minus  21.53% =  0.20%
3. Safari: 8.00% minus 8.29% = 0.29%
4. Chrome: 1.15% minus 1.12% = 0.03%
5. Opera: 0.71% minus 0.70% =  0.01%
6. Netscape: 0.66% minus 0.57% = 0.09%
7. Others: 0.24 minus 0.24% =  0.00%

Comments:

The big winner in February was Mozilla Firefox which moved up almost one quarter of one percent which is very good.  This time it wasn’t at the expense of Microsoft Internet Explorer.  Strangely enough, it was at the expense of Apple Safari which lost 0.29%.

Another big winner was legendary Netscape which rose 0.09%.  It’s absolutely amazing how loyal to Netscape its followers are, after AOL pulled the plug to this historic browser.  Netscape challenges logic.  Even though it has no customer support from AOL, it retains fans within  its camp.  I appreciate brand loyalty for a legendary software which paved the way for the rest of the browsers during the early days of the Internet.

The rest of the picture is more or less the same.  Big winners:  Mozilla Firefox and Netscape. Big loser:  Apple Safari. Good Day.

Read Full Post »

Gasoline Prices Going Down in Panama

Last week the government officials announced they had approved a decrease in gasoline prices effective Saturday, February 28th at midnight.  There was a sign of relief after a hectic Carnival Week when most pockets are empty.

This was the first price trimming after three consecutive increase in gasoline prices during the last 30 days.  According to the posted prices at the Esso service station a couple of blocks from my house, the last price change was:

• Super Diesel: Decreased  from $2.01 to $1.87 per U.S. gallon = $0.14
• Regular Gasoline (91 Octane): Decreased  from $2.24 to $2.13 per U.S. gallon = $0.11
• Premium Gasoline (95 Octane): Decreased  from $2.47 to $2.31 per U.S. gallon = $0.16

Unless there is dramatic event like another war in the Middle or an attack to oil fields in Nigeria, the price of crude oil is expected to remain relatively stable.  As of this morning, the price of oil was $43.75.  Demand destruction has kept the lid on rising oil prices.

The global economic slowdown has hit the demand for crude oil hard. The International Energy Agency has continuously revised downwards its monthly oil demand estimates for 2008 and 2009. In July 2008, when the agency for the first time published its official estimate on the global oil demand in 2009, it was 87.7 MBPD (Million Barrels Per Day).

This now stands slashed to just 84.7 MBPD and with further downside risk. This means that the global oil consumption in 2009 will be lower than 2008, which itself was lower than 2007. This is the first time in past 25 years that we will witness such demand contraction for two consecutive years.

For the sake of our limited budgets, let’s keep our fingers crossed that oil prices continue at present levels.  Good Day.

Read Full Post »

Photograph of the Day: Taking it Easy

Photograph of a slow-paced Sunday morning at Santa Ana Park in Panama City, Panama. (Credit: Omar Upegui R./Michael Moore)

Read Full Post »