Every now and then I think it is fun to delve into the stats of the readers of this website to find out what you guys are using on your computers. Things like screen resolutions, operating systems, web browsers. So, what are you guys using these days? What do the trends show?

Web Browser

While Internet Explorer used to be the de facto standard in web browsing, today the popularity of that browser has waned quite a bit in favor of Mozilla’s Firefox. The numbers show that 53.9% of PCMech visitors are using Internet Explorer. Of those IE users, 54.5% are using IE7 and 45% are using IE6. The remaining numbers are showing much older versions of Internet Explorer, probably by people using really old machines. The fact that a full 45% of IE users (representing about 24% of our total traffic) are still using IE6 is really something. Are these readers using hacked versions of Windows where the Windows Genuine Advantage limitation was keeping them from upgrading ? Are they in a corporate environment where the IT folks are afraid of IE7? Who knows.

39.6% of our visitors are using Firefox, 2.6% are using Opera, 1.6% are using Safari (surprising), and the rest are using rare browsers usually found on other operating systems. And believe it or not, 43 people in the last 30 days have accessed PCMech on their Playstation 3!

Operating System

Not surprisingly, our readers are overwhelmingly a Windows bunch. About 92% of our readers are using Windows. And within them, 82% are still using Windows XP. 12.3% of our Windows users are using Vista, 3.2% are on Windows 2000, 1% on Windows 98, and then we have a few stragglers on other versions. What is interesting to me is the low adoption rate of Windows Vista. Our readers are obviously either in the “Hell no to Vista” crowd or the “I’ll wait and see” crowd. Either way, XP is still the obvious king. While everybody in the tech community talks about Vista, the overwhelming majority of us are still using XP.

At 4.9% of total traffic, Linux users are coming in a distant second place. 2.9% are using the Mac, and then, of course, we have those few stragglers who like to surf the web on their game consoles.

For anybody who wonders if Apple or Linux can take over for Windows, those numbers have to be sobering. Apple might be great. Linux might be great. But both platforms have Everest-size tech mountains to crawl over to get even close to out-doing Windows.

Screen Resolution

Monitors are getting bigger and it is showing in the screen resolutions. 1024×768 is still king at 37% of our traffic, but that is a reduction from our last official look at the same figure. 1280×1024 comes in at 22%, 1280×800 comes in at 10.7%, 1680×1050 at 6%, 1440×900 at 5.3%, 800×600 at 4.7%, and it reduces from there. Notable for NOT being in the top 10 is the ultra-small 640×480. It used to be.

What is interesting from these stats is, of course, the overall increase in screen resolutions. People are gravitating toward larger screens. And widescreens are increasing in use as we are seeing a lot of common widescreen monitor resolutions showing up in the top 10.

Connection Speed

You guys are using high-speed in droves. Very few of you are now using dial-up internet access, and that is good news. 32% of you are on cable, 26% on DSL, 10.5% on T1, 3.3% on dial-up, 0.6% on OC3, and so on. There are some that the system could not determine.

Conclusions

What we see on PCMech is likely a pretty good cross-section of what the internet as a whole would be seeing. There is, of course, the factor of the type of person that would be a reader of PCMech. As a whole, you guys are going to be a little more tech savvy than the average person. But, that is an assumption. When all is said and done, the stats show that people are now using fast internet connections, larger screen resolutions, and are highly skeptical of Windows Vista.