For the first time ever, my website statistics show that Firefox was the most commonly used browser by people visiting this site. The following list provides a complete review of browser traffic in February 2008. The total is not 100% because there are also hits coming from mobile devices and browsers that the statistics routine is not able to identify.

1. Firefox - 42.5%
2. Internet Explorer - 37%
3. Safari - 14.4%
4. Mozilla - 2.2%
5. Opera - 1.2%
6. Netscape - 0.4%
7. Konqueror - 0.2%
8. Epiphany - 0.1%
9. Camino - 0.1%

Who Cares?

That is a fair question. I only test this site with Safari and Firefox because I use Apple computers and do not have access to Internet Explorer (IE). I generally do not know how well this site renders when viewed with IE, so Firefox and Safari visits are preferable. While Browsershots is a helpful site that will load your website with many different browsers and then display screenshots so you can see the results, I do not use it for every small (but possibly IE-breaking) change to the layout. This is an unfortunate situation because IE has a history of forcing lots of extra work to make web pages look the way they were intended. Fewer IE visits is a good thing because it means the visitors are likely seeing the site in the same way I see it. Since I am not a professional, or even a good, graphic designer it is enough trouble just to create and maintain a layout without a browser ruining it.

Why Firefox?

Firefox served the most hits by a comfortable margin. From a statistics perspective it will be another few months before I can say whether this is a one-time result or a change in the demographic of visitors. There are at least two possible causes for the Firefox prevalence. One is that I received some publicity from Professor Gordon Watts, a particle physicist (high-energy physics). Many of his readers appear to be Linux users, which means they would not have access to Internet Explorer. They are also generally responsible for the more exotic browsers in the list. The second possible cause is that February saw a lot of traffic coming from university networks unrelated to Prof. Watts' link. If these visitors were using university machines, then Firefox might have been their only option.

Hope for the Future

Considering that an increase in Firefox traffic generally corresponds to an increase in academic visitors, I hope that this trend continues. Since almost everything here is physics, getting the word out to interested people is not easy. I wonder whether an increase in the number of EM Topics would increase Firefox's lead?