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Did something happene in Autum 2008 to the Win98 community?


winxpi

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Another way to put it, 4 million still use Win9x (all versions combined), whereas 1460 million don't. Also worth noting, Win9x market share is dropping by about 500000 users a month, using those numbers again (0.54% in Oct 08, 0.31% in Mar 09 so 0.23% less in 6 months, or 0.038333333... % less per month, times 1,463,632,361 users = 561059 less users/month average) At the current rate, within 6 months, it'll be under a million and under 0.1%

Don't forget about the new users that your picking back up. :P I use a Mac at home and work, but on those Macs I also run XP through parallels. On my home project system I have also built a legacy gaming box. Windows 98 SE on a 1000a Tuleron running at 1.5 GHz with 150 MHz memory clock. This system outperforms all my others which is impressive considering its age. I will always be a 9x user, imho a much better OS than Microsoft has released yet. I don't even want to get started on that new garbage, Vista and Vista Mark II aka Windows 7.

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Don't forget about the new users that your picking back up. :P

The thing is, those are only a tiny minority (mainly nostalgic folks I assume) and vastly outnumbered by those who would rather use something else.

There's no slowing down of that mass "exile" either. Win98 is now down to 0.09%, WinME 0.04%, and Win95 doesn't even register on the scale. At the current speeds, the Win9x combined market share will be 0.1% by next month, and still keep dropping steadily beyond that.

At the time of the post you quoted, there were about 4 million Win9x users left, and going by the same total number of users (1,463,632,361) and the new percentages, now there would be 1.9 million left, and about 1.5 by next month. If you keep the current average drop rate for this year (e.g. -0.016%/mo for Win98 -- a linear curve) then combined Win9x market share will hit below 0.01% before next summer. Even if you go with a exponential curve, you still get below 0.01% within 6 months (and below 0.005% in under a year; which would mean a total number of users being well below 100k)

So a dozen new users on these Win9x forum section every few months isn't exactly a lot.

Oh, and BTW, I wouldn't want of a Mac, even to use as a boat anchor :P

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Guest wsxedcrfv

This website is somewhat interesting:

http://www.systemdetails.com

Your System's market share:

0.005% Of web usage occurs on systems very similar to yours.

Detailed Analysis:

0.083% use Windows 98

0.012% and use Firefox 2

0.005% and use a similar screen resolution (1280 x 1024)

0.005% and use a broadband connection

When I hit that page using IE6, I get this data:

0.021% Of web usage occurs on systems very similar to yours.

Detailed Analysis:

0.083% use Windows 98

0.066% and use Internet Explorer 6

0.026% and use a similar screen resolution

0.021% and use a broadband connection

I'm not sure if this tells us anything about the use of either Firefox or IE6 on Win-98. No idea why the screen resolution and broadband numbers are different - they shouldn't be.

Other web-metrics sites also give current Win-98 usage at about 0.09%. Regression analysis of the past 15 months of data indicates that % usage of win-98 is dropping at the rate of 0.005% per month. That rate will certainly slow down, but if it continued at that rate then hypothetically the soonest that we would expect 0% win-98 usage would be June 2011.

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This website is somewhat interesting:

http://www.systemdetails.com

Interesting, yes. For providing the assurance that for every system similar to mine, there are 999 that aren't. :lol: By now, I've pretty well reconciled that fact.

Given that it was presenting information on my own system, I found it a bit ironic that the site prompted me with a dialogue demanding the installation of an OS-incompatible Flash plugin version to view the statistic charts...

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I got the following results under 98 (I dual boot W2K and 98SE2ME combined with 98 lite-IE removed!, using Firefox 2.0.0.22pre)

Your System's Market Share

0.010%

Of web usage occurs on systems

very similar to yours.

Detailed Analysis:

0.083% use Windows 98

0.012% and use Firefox 2

0.011% and use a similar screen resolution

0.010% and use a broadband connection

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Guest wsxedcrfv
I got the following results under 98 (I dual boot W2K and 98SE2ME combined with 98 lite-IE removed!, using Firefox 2.0.0.22pre)

What exactly is version Firefox 2.0.0.22pre, and where can it be obtained?

Your System's Market Share: 0.010% Of web usage occurs on systems very similar to yours.

Detailed Analysis:

0.083% use Windows 98

0.012% and use Firefox 2

If I understand these FF2 and IE6 numbers, then for every win-98 system running FF2 as the primary browser, then somewhere between 5 and 6 systems are running IE6 as the primary browser.

We know that IE6 generally does a poor job of rendering most web-content. If it's true that IE6 usage outnumbers FF2 on win-98 systems by 5 or 6 to 1, then one hypothesis is that there are many unreported win-98 systems in use where the owners have abandoned general web browsing (because they haven't installed FF) but perhaps still use their systems for e-mail - or no longer have those systems connected to the internet.

Edited by wsxedcrfv
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Firefox 2.0.0.22pre was the last nightly build of FF2. I can't remember the exact details now, but improvements in the Win 98 compatible versions of SeaMonkey or Thunderbird were still being applied to the nightly builds of FF2 even after the release of 2.0.0.20. Firefox is called 'Bon Echo' in its development form but it is still FF, the name is changed to Firefox after it is released. (I changed the useragent string in FF so it reports itself to sites as Firefox 2.0.0.22pre, not Bon Echo).

Here is the link to the last nightly build of FF 2.0.0.22pre (it is dated 2009-04-15):

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/fir...-04-mozilla1.8/

I posted a thread about this back in March of 2009, I'll have to go find the link.

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So a dozen new users on these Win9x forum section every few months isn't exactly a lot.

Yes it's a lot. I don't care how many poeple use w9x worldwide as long as as many poeple as before are still on this forum.

We can be the 50 users left on a w9x machine (and for certain, one day there will be 50 poeple left only, then 49 ,48 ,47 etc until zero) if we are still 50 on this forum. I'll feel fine.

I only wonder who among us will be the very last w98 user??? champion-1er.gif The last nr_1?!

IMO there will still be a lot of activity here and a lot of w9x users long after the internet statistics have declared the total disapearance of this OS family.0025.gif

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When Windows 98 was new, I honestly predicted that it would be cast aside as a fad and would never surpass Windows 95 in install base.

That didn't happen; though if '98 and '95 tie themselves at a statistical zero percent, that might as well be the case...

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Hey, don't forget the Windows 95 users!

We don't! That's why msfn moderators gave you five stars! :D

The last w95 user deserves that.

Seriousely do you know other w95 users than you? Imagine being the last one.

What an incredible feeling it must be... A living legend...

Edited by Fredledingue
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