From within AOL software, you can browse the web using
the built-in browser of AOL or you can launch a browser outside of
AOL software environment to browse the web.  

I would like to know if there's any reliable marketing information on
what percentage of AOL
users use the built-in AOL Browser instead of another browser (IE,
Netscape, Opera, etc.) outside of the AOL software environment.

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Request for Question Clarification by blader-ga on 17 Jul 2002 18:21 PDT

Dear ti-ga:

Thanks for your question. I'm not sure if this fills your needs, so
I'm posting this as a clarification request.

According to ISP-Planet, 13.58% of all internet traffic comes from
AOL.
According to Browser News, 5-6% of all page accesses comes from the
AOL browser.

So, approximately 40%of all AOL users use the built in AOL browser,
while 60% use the external browser.

I hope this answers your question.

Best Regards,
blader-ga

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Clarification of Question by ti-ga on 17 Jul 2002 21:08 PDT

blader-ga's analysis is what I'm looking for, assuming that his
percentages are correct and based on reliable statistics source.

I'm wondering if we know how many users are online worldwide and how
many users AOL claims to have.  Does that equal to the 13%+ blader-ga
is quoting?

Also, how does Browser News compute the 5-6% of AOL Browser users? 
Based on User-Agent string?

Based on serving over 1 billion page views per month, about 14.7% of
the viewers use AOL as their ISP.

The exact value is:  14.655411%

The most popular national ISPs (that we track) are as follows (in
order of popularity):  AOL, UUnet, Prodigy, Sprint, Netcom.  This is
determined based on who owns the IPs.

This is tracked by our in-house ad server which provides this type of
data.

As far as how many AOL users only use the AOL browser - for that I
have no idea..

Regards.

Are you asking in terms of technical compatibility? If so, be aware
that AOL uses IE under the hood. There is an API to IE that allows it
to be embedded in other applications, and many make use of it. I've
heard rumors that the AOL browser will be replaced with Netscape (as
AOL owns Netscape and all) in the near future.

There are two ways to get the AOL percentage number: 1) User-Agent
string, and 2) reverse DNS lookup of requesting IP address (all AOL
Web traffic is routed through one of several proxy servers).

All anyone can comment on is a percentage of requests to their site.
There is no way to figure out what actual usage is across the entire
Web. Generally speaking, surveys that project to total Web traffic are
on statistically shaky ground - ok for getting a rough ballpark
figure, but not something lean on heavily. Go around and get several
different reports. The last time I did this I was shocked at the
magnitude of the discrepancies.

-steakfry