Winners and losers of 2010

Now that NetMarketShare’s data for December 2010 is in the can, we can take a look at the winners and losers of 2010 in the browsers and operating systems category.

First browsers. Here the winner is clear - Google Chrome, which saw its usage share more than double, rising from 4.63% in December 2009 to 9.98% in December 2010. A missive rise which has seen the browser leap ahead of Apple’s Safari (which gained a little ground, up from 4.46% in December 2009 to 5.89% in December 2010) and Opera (which lost ground, going from 2.40% in December 2009 to 2.23% in December 2010).

The biggest loser on the browser front was Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. IE saw its usage share fall from 62.69% in December 2009 to 57.08% in December 2010.

Firefox, once the pin-up browser for geeks the world over, saw its usage share fall from 24.61% in December 2009 to 22.81% in December 2010.

Internet Explorer 8 commands a usage share of 33.02%, Firefox 3.6 18.50%, and Internet Explorer 6 (yes, that old dog) still clings on to 13.06%.

Let’s take a look at operating systems. Apple had a mixed year. Usage share for Mac OS fell slightly, down from 5.11% in December 2009 to 5.02% in December 2010. Apple’s mobile platform iOS, did better with it’s usage share climbing from 0.53% to 1.69% over the same period.

Linux dawdled around the 1% mark all year.

Microsoft saw usage share for the behemoth OS Windows fall slightly too, down from 92.21% in December 2009 to 90.29% in December 2010. Windows 7 now commands a usage share of 20.87%, Vista 12.11% and XP a whopping 56.72%.

NetMarketShare uses data captured from the 160 million unique visitors browsing some 40,000 Web sites it monitors for clients.