We had to make a decision at work the other day as to whether a site we were making should be able to support people with 800×600 monitors. I said no, that no-one used this resolution any more, that 1024 was the norm, and we should go with that (most websites we do support both of course, but there were special considerations with this one).

I was wrong.

A quick look at the monitor resolution stats for May 2003 shows that the largest proportion of users, 44%, were still using 800×600 displays. I was shocked.

It also rates the cumulative number of users using IE to be at 94%. I was not shocked.

Although allegedly, thecounter.com tracked around 38 million visitors in May, and 350 million in April. I can’t help but be suspicious. Do these sorts of numbers really exist? is thecounter.com really used that widely? Answers on a postcard.