More than a third of web browsers used in Europe is open source, shows data collected in November by Xitimonitor, a website monitor service based in France. Developers of government websites and browser based applications should keep this in mind.
According to the French website auditors, 31.1 percent of European Internet users now surfs using the open source browser Firefox. Another 1.1 percent uses Google's open source browser Chrome, published in September.
The use of open source browsers has increased from 23 percent in the summer of 2006, when the company published the first of its surveys on open source browser usage.
The browser used most often remains Microsoft's proprietary Internet Explorer, which in November was used by 59.5 percent of Internet users. Third most popular is the proprietary browser Opera, developed by the Norwegian software company of the same name. Apple's proprietary browser Safari is fourth most popular, used by 2.5 percent.
The French company collected the browser statistics by monitoring 121,919 websites in 32 European countries.
Such data is relevant for designers and developers of web sites for public administrations. Optimising a web site or a web service for just one specific browser can hinder visitors using an alternative browser, for example by rendering functions unusable or by mangling the site's lay out and colours.
One European example of a government website designed for just one browser is the website for the Romanian senate. This is only accessible for users of Microsoft's proprietary browser. Visitors using a different type of browser are redirected to a site telling them to install this proprietary browser.
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