Browser Usage

This page is a part of "Actual Browser Sizes"

Looking at the actual size of the browser, we start to see a very interesting usage pattern.

Notice: the browser size is the area inside the browser window, without the toolbars, scrollbars etc.

Browser size

The width of the browser window has distinct peaks. This indicates that people either browse maximized or close to it. The peak around 800 is close to 800x600, similarly is the peak close to 1024 (1024x768).

Looking at the height we see a somewhat different graph. This is most likely caused by the toolbars people have added to their browser. Overall we see the same pattern. People browser close to maximized.

Percentages of Display size

This behavior is confirmed when we look at the percentages of the screen used for the browser. Here we see a dominant usage around 98% of the screen size.

Maximized

Comparing maximized browser usage with the individual screen resolutions, we see another interesting behavior. The bigger the screen, the less likely people is to maximize their browser. But, we need to go above 1400px before we see any substantial drop.

Browser size vs. display size

Another interesting behavior can be found when we compare display width vs. browser width. People use the available width of the browser until we reach 1280px, then it levels out. There is no substantial difference in browser size when people use high resolution screens.

This indicates that the magical width of the browser is about 1350px.

But, looking at the height, people tend to use as much screen space as they can.

Maximized vs. Operating Systems & Browsers

Mac users do not maximize their browser (not really surprising). But, when we compare the browser width we see that it is the same as on Windows' or Linux's.

Regardless of the platform, the average size of the browser is about 1100px - Mac users simply have more empty space around their browser.

We see the same pattern when we look at the browser. Safari really stands out from the pack when it comes to browsing maximized - but, looking specifically at the width of the browser they are all the same.

Macs might be a different system, but people's browsing behavior is the same.

Comments

Blake Engel - Nov. 3, 2006

This is a great analysis. I completed a similar analysis a few years ago for a client who found it very useful.

We were hoping to determine the optimal placement for the vertical fold, and took the browser height data and transformed it one more level: What percentage of users at each vertical fold size will not have to scroll?

This graph has a few "cliffs" at which many more users will have to scroll, so your marginal cost of more vertical space goes up quite quickly.

At the time, and from the dataset from their website, we determined this point to be 540 pixels.

What dataset are you drawing from? Clearly the distribution will vary greatly from site to site, and one site's data could either accurately or inaccurately inform another site's design.