Which is the most popular web browser?

Looking at the traffic analysis reports on the fabulous free Google Analytics software, we were interested to see the latest figures on browser market share. The market has shifted substantially since this time last year.

The figures for August 2007 are as follows (with August 2006 figures in brackets):
74% (82%) - Internet Explorer
20% (11%) - Firefox
4% (3%) - Safari
2% (4%)- Other


And if we break down the Internet Explorer figures a bit further:
55% (96%)- Version 6.0
44% (2%) - Version 7.0
1% (2%) - Older


It's clear from this data that Firefox is becoming a more important player and seriously threatening Microsoft's dominance of the browser market (good for Firefox!). But what does this data mean for web developers?

Well, the obvious conclusion is that we need to continue developing cross-browser compatible websites and make sure we are still testing on the big three as a minimum - IE6, IE7 and Firefox. Between them they account for 98% of all Internet traffic and much of the remaining 2% will render webpages the same anyway. It's still useful to have a peek in Safari or Opera, of course, since they have their own quirks.