IE9 Top Browser on Windows 7 and Other Highlights from 2011

With New Year’s Eve fast approaching, we wanted to give an early look at what we expect the share numbers to look like as we close out 2011, as well as take a look back at some of the top moments for the IE team this year.

Last month we predicted that IE9 was on a path to be the number one modern browser on Windows 7 worldwide. As of November, IE9 usage share on Windows 7 worldwide was higher than all versions of Chrome and all versions of Firefox – second only to IE8. Based on where the December data currently stands, we’re pleased to say IE9 is still following that trajectory and will soon take the top spot from IE8 on Windows 7, with usage share expected to come in at nearly 25.6% this month.



Source: Net Applications, December 2011 (monthly data through December 28th).

And once again, we expect the numbers in the US to be particularly encouraging.



Source: Net Applications, December 2011 (monthly data through Dec 28th).

2011 Top 10 Moments, IE Style

Of course, while the growth of IE9 is great for developers and the hundreds of millions of customers that get to experience a better Web, percentage points really only tell part of the story. Looking back at 2011, it was an exciting year for the Internet Explorer team, our customers and partners. Let’s look at some of top moments:

1. The launch of IE9: Together with dozens of partners including AMD, Dell, HP, Hulu, Groupon, Huffington Post, eBay, Slacker, ESPN and Foursquare, we launched IE9 at SXSW. Within 24 hours of that announcement, IE9 was downloaded 2.35 million times. That’s over 27 downloads every second, or over 240 downloads every 9 seconds.

2. The release of IE10 Platform Preview 1 at MIX 11: Just four weeks after the launch of IE9 we released IE10 Platform Preview 1 at MIX 11. We are now up to IE10 Platform Preview 4.The IE10 platform releases have added even more support for HTML5 and by continuing to innovate in areas like hardware acceleration, IE’s performance capabilities continue to shine.

3. Reimagining the browser with Windows 8: Although we gave an early look at IE10 through the Platform Previews, the real story came to life at Build when we showcased how IE10 will work with Windows 8 on new touch devices. Windows 8 will include one HTML5 based browsing engine that powers two browsing experiences: a new, metro-style experience that is perfect for Windows 8 touch devices as well as the desktop experience.

4. Amazing Web Experiences coming to life with HTML5: We’ve been fortunate to work with some amazing developers to create a number of truly killer HTML5 experiences this year. Two of our favorites:


5. IE9 recognized as the top browser for malware protection, according to NSS: NSS Labs, the independent security research and testing organization, released two reports in August that showed Internet Explorer continues to offer the best protection against socially engineered malware. According to the global test conducted by NSS, “IE9 caught an exceptional 96% of the live threats with SmartScreen URL reputation, and an additional 3.2% with Application Reputation.” Given that socially engineered malware is one of the top online security threats, we’re pretty darn proud of this one.

6. Helping to protect consumer privacy – IE9 includes Tracking Protection: When we launched the IE9 Release Candidate in February it included a significant new feature, Tracking Protection, a new technology that gave people more control of their privacy online while they browse the Web.  With IE’s tracking protection and support from numerous third party organizations including Abine, TRUSTe, EasyList and PrivacyChoice consumers can both express their intent not to be tracked online and with a single click subscribe to a trusted 3rd party tracking protection list to prevent the tracking from occurring.

7. Orchestrating the demise of IE6: Yes, along with the rest of the world, we’d really like to see people move off of IE6, so much so that we launched a site dedicated to that end in March. Thank you to the nearly 1000 sites and thousands of developers who have partnered with us to encourage people to move off IE6, and congratulations to those countries in our Champions circle, you will have even more regions joining you soon (hint, hint).

8. Announcing plans to bring auto upgrades to IE. The community response to this news has been overwhelmingly positive, with users around the world applauding the decision to enable auto updates for IE users. One of our favorite tweets was from @zeldman: MSIE auto-updates: a holiday gift to web developers everywhere. http://is.gd/Dx2650.

9. Having some fun along the way: This is actually more than just one moment, but worth a shout out regardless. Whether it was sending some baked goods to our friends at Mozilla, “beanie-ing up” in support of Web standards, helping to host the first annual W3C conference, providing a few tips on when to update your parents’ browser, wrapping presents for little ones or sponsoring the first New Game Conference, we tried to stop and have a little fun throughout the year.

10. IE9 poised to become the leading browser on Windows 7: Okay, maybe it’s a bit early to list this one since we still have a little ways to go, but we are quickly heading in the right direction, which definitely earns a spot on the top 10 list.

We’ll see what the final numbers have to say when they come out on January 1, 2012. We’ll provide an update then.

In the meantime, thank you to everyone for a wonderful 2011 and Happy New Year!

Roger Capriotti
Director, Internet Explorer Marketing


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