what percentage of internet users are set at 256 colors?

Dear wiemerslage,

According to statistical data provided by the Website Development
Company, Swanzey & Associates in 2001, 8.1 percent of all internet
users use a color display of 256 colors:

http://www.swanzey.com/stuff.html#display

However, w3schools.com has figures showing that in April 2002 only 4
percent of the users prefer a 256 color display:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

The same number of 4 percent can also be found in the April 2002 stats
of thecounter.com:

http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2002/April/colors.php

So the general picture is: About 4% of the internet users have a 256
color display in Spring 2002, a contingent with a tendency to
shrinking. Since no one really registers how many of the international
internet users have what settings, this data is as good as it gets.

Search terms used:
"256 colors" statistics internet users:
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&newwindow=1&q=%22256+colors%22+statistics+internet+users&meta=

Hope this is what you were looking for!
Regards,
Scriptor

We use the hitbox service that automatically tracks this for us on our
ecommerce site in real time. For year 2002, this is our real time
breakdown (from users that allow this type of info to be captured):
Name	                        Visitors	%
65,536 Colors (16-bit)	          6,570	      54.18
16.7 Million Colors (32-bit)	  3,316	      27.35
16.7 Million Colors (24-bit)	  1,419	       11.7
256 Colors (8-bit)	            778	       6.42
Unknown	                             42        0.35
Total                    12,125	 12,125	     100.00%


Although we pay for this service, because of its more robust features
and privacy, it is also available free of charge to users that don't
mind ad support. http://www.hitboxcentral.com/index.php?sid=services&cntid=hbpersonal

I know this does not answer your question on a macro level, however if
you are trying to determine design for your own site, it may be a good
to continue monitoring this.

Hope this helps!