Microsoft announced on Sunday that there is a vulnerability in Internet explorer that is actively being exploited. It affects everything from IE6 to IE11. That represents about 26% of the browser market out there. That’s pretty huge since there is no fix right now.
Active 0day attack hijacking IE users threatens a quarter of browser market
The reason I find this interesting is that while 26% of web traffic is using IE, that’s clearly not the case here at ND. I’m conducting some surveys about the use of lecture capture. One of the questions I ask is which browser they use. The results are pretty atypical from the rest of the internet.
- Chrome – 57%
- Safari – 24%
- Firefox – 12%
- IE – 7%
If I’m Microsoft, I’d pretty scared at this point. Chrome is clearly winning the browser market among college students. College students that will fix their parent’s computers.
Additionally I ask the students which OS they use. The results are about what I’d expect.
- Apple -50%
- Windows – 50%
If I break browser numbers down further, among PC users the browser usage is even more depressing:
- Chrome – 65%
- Firefox – 22%
- IE – 14%
On the Apple side it’s very encouraging, if you’re Apple. Or Chrome.
- Chrome – 49%
- Safari – 49%
- Firefox – 2%
I’m glad to see that students are using a browser with more features and better security. Now if I could just get my in-laws to switch. They “just click on the blue E” or “the thing that says internet”.
There’s a thought! Rename the icon to read “The Internet” and remove the IE icons. If only there weren’t still so many websites that only work with IE and a specific Java version.