Linux browser share

First, lets look at the ever popular hitslink.com that winvocates love to mention. Yes, linux tops at less than seven tenths of a percent, but what I find interest is the obvious long term trend. Unfortunately, hitslink does not reveal much data about their methodology or sample set, but reading up on the company it looks like they have a relatively decent size customer base made up largely of American companies/websites.

Link to the source data

hitslink.com

April 2007 - February 2008

This next one is interesting as it provides more information about the samples and methodology. A typical sample includes more than 20 million visits aggregated from nearly 8000 sites. We see the same basic growth trend as with hitslink, but it tops out at a healthier 2 percent. This might be because of a greater mix of international traffic. They show less than a third of their traffic originating from the US. This reinforces the idea that Linux usage is higher outside of the United States.

Link to the source data

w3counter.com

May 2007 - February 2008

Finally, just for fun I'm throwing in this one from w3schools. It looks like it has more noise that the other two which probably means it is working with a much smaller sample size. Also, it probably suffers from demographic issues that could skew the results. Three and a half percent is a respectable share, but I suspect it is higher than average because of the nature of the site's content.

Link to the source data

w3schools.com

March 2003 - January 2008

Disclaimer: This is just for fun. The graphs are compiled from publicly available but incomplete data and without consulting the original site owners. In short, you would be crazy to use this in any sort of official capacity. Don't do it.