As of 2010-01-18 - IE has crashed from over 95% to around 60% and Firefox is now 25%. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers for monthly updated stats on this issue with years of history. Interesting how IE had over 90% of market for over 4 years before others started catching up... Also interesting how wide a range the browsers show(IE ranges from 50-80%) dependant on the continent. Go Google Chrome... quickly gathering market share... Let's see how they do ;)
Here are some valuable web statistics I have gathered from various reporting sites. These are stats generated from thousands of web sites so they should show a pretty accurate representation. Microsoft has a monopoly on both the browser and the operating system.
As of 2001-01-09 - IE is still getting stronger, Netscape is falling further behind. People are using 1024x768 or higher resolution more often.
Browsers
Which browsers are being used most often. Clear dominance - IE(85%+).
Microsoft IE 5.* 72.4% Microsoft IE 4.* 7.7% Netscape All 13.2% AOL - uses IE4+ 5.1% Other 1.6% Operating System
There is no competition here for web surfers. Microsoft has more than 95%.
Windows 9*/ME 78.6% Windows NT/2000 16.7% Macintosh 3.4% Other 1.3% Screen Resolution
800x600 has finally reached critical mass and can be considered the standard. Higher resolutions should not be adopted yet unless you have captive audience.
800x600 51.5% 1024x768 or higher 34.0% 640x480 6.8% Not Specified 7.6% Color Depth
More than 256 colors is now the standard. Less than 10% have 256 colors or less.
16bit(65k) 50.9% 24bit+(16m) 34.6% 8bit(256) 6.6% Not specified 7.5% Other 0.4% Finding methods
This is of particular interest when weighing the value of search engines. They don't exactly rate highly in ways pages are found. I was surprised by the volume other websites generate. I did not think it was that high. I thought search engines would fair much higher.
Inside of site 41.5% Bookmarked/Typed 29.1% Other web sites 22.7% Search engines 6.5% Other 0.1%