...After all, from your graph it is clear than Pacman is at the root of the problem.

Good to see Pac-Man is still about :)

At this rate, playstation3 will have a 95% market share in just 28 months. Once news of this gets out, I expect shares of Sony stock to quintuple.

On second thought, it doesn't make sense. For PS3 to reach a 95% market share in just 28 months, we would need to assume that the current trend will continue unchanged into infinity... I'm sure that the people who buy and sell stocks for a living are reasonable people, who would know that past statistical data does not guarantee future performance.

On third thought, I expect shares of Sony stock to go up 10x.

Does that still run on Windows?

So long as the sucker doesn't get a powerup, the ghost in the machine should eventually take care of that particular pacman.

And, according to some companies standards are dangerous and are made to be broken.

Will the successor of Vista be the first to try and force us to go octal? That 89 would become a staggering 131(oct)%

I don't believe these figures, even in the technologically repressed culture I endure, Linux is over 1%.

Your first line is unjustified from that info. The number of Windows users could have risen, but if the number using a different OS to surf rose faster (iPhone and netbook users?) then the Windows percentage would fall.

Given net use is still rising, I find it hard to believe actual Windows use fell.

I personally refuse to upgrade to windows vista. Microsoft stopped supporting XP or at least my version of XP. I purchased this computer im on right now simply because I didn't want to spend $300 on a new XP cd (because I lost the OS CD for the gateway I purchased and gateway refused to do anything about it). Once I get bored with XP Pro, i'll be going to CentOS linux as my desktop.

Credit goes to the defunct Packard Bell. When I lost my windows Diskettes (13 or so) they sent me new ones, no questions asked, no warranty contract, it was a Packard Bell and they supported their brand.

I find all these new windows versions to be nonsense and a ripoff and im also insulted that windows cost less in some areas. It's bad enough we have wealth re-distribution as it is, im not paying 300 for something when someone else is going to pay 150.

See ya Gates!

> The number of Windows users surfing the web fell below 90 per cent...

So 10% of Windows users don't surf the web? Surely that should read:

> The number of web surfers using Windows fell below 90 per cent...

If the long term trends continue, then 2009 will be the year that Linux breaks through the 1% mark (and Mac usage will also break through 10%). And it may go quicker than that, even, with the Small, Cheap Computers that are seemingly becoming commonplace.

No wonder MS are accelerating Windows 7 - I'm sure there'll be a Lite mode to go on those laptops to try to squeeze out Linux, is it all too late?

It would be interesting to see if petrol consumption market share has moved away from family cars and towards executive cars over recent months. In a recession, it's the people with a low amount of disposable income who will cut back first. Just as struggling working class families will try to reduce petrol use where middle-class families will not have to, so owners of cheaper computers (ie Windows computers) will need to cut back on internet costs where wealthier Mac owners can afford to carry on as usual.

I predict that when the recession ends, there will be a splurge on low end PCs and a big increasing in surfing amongst the working class demographic, leading to a move back towards Windows based surfing in the stats.

My linux firefox sometimes identifies itself as a windows xp ie 6 machine - so I can get past some stupid sites with iE only checks. Im not the only one.

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However the stats are wrong, these are stats about who accessed the INNERNET, not what OS is on the HDD. Only 10% of people with a computer bother connect to the innernet anyway, and even then it's just to check emails, which isn't really the internet at all (different protocol).

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Yes the stats show what OS people were using when connecting to the Internet - that's what it was about, not OS proliferation in general.

Email still connects to the Internet - just not the World Wide Web, unless of course it's web-based email (as opposed to POP3)... which for home users is probably the majority of people.

Hey ho - 78% of statistics are made up on the spot anyway.

A good proportion of computer users would not be gorging themselves to death during Thanksgiving, since they neither know or care what or when it is.

Or did this survey only cover the United States of America?

Or is my screen simply to small?

And yet, I'm not. I've had a PS3 for a month or two now and the browser really is absolutely excellent. It's now also the fastest method of getting online for me - including my smartphone. By the time any other device has booted the browser, I'm already checking my e-mails with the PS3. Love it.

Thanksgiving can't explain loss of share if they are not.

This site http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp shows Linux at 3.8% and Mac at 5.5% (based on browsers alone I believe, not other internet connections). What amazed me was the FF penetration, so I think these results might be skewed towards the more tech-savvy.

Nice summary of various stats here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_desktop_operating_systems