Vista, Mac Use Both Increase

Windows Vista made its biggest leap yet in November -- the operating system was in use on nearly one out of ten Internet-connected computers last month, according to a research firm.

Vista's exact share rose about one percentage point to 9.19 percent in November, up from 7.94 percent in October, according to Net Applications. In contrast, Vista's predecessor, Windows XP, fell by about one percentage point from 79.41 percent  of all Internet-connected computers in October to 78.37 percent  in November, according to Net Applications. Meanwhile, the Mac platform's share continued to grow, reaching nearly 7 percent .

Windows' overall share continues to exceed 92 percent, according to the Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based research firm.

Linux was in use on 0.6 percent of PCs worldwide, according to Net Applications. Despite its small share, Linux's slice of the market has nearly doubled since the beginning of the year.

Vista's share has grown from 0.2 percent to 9.2 percent since the beginning of the year. XP's share, meanwhile, has fallen from to 78.4 percentfrom 85 %at the beginning of the year.

Internet Explorer 7's share continued to grow, reaching nearly 37 percent. It is poised to eclipse its predecessor, IE6, which has fallen more than 14 percentage points since the beginning of the year, to 40.2 percent. Altogether, IE was in use on 77.4 percent of Internet-connected computers, down from 80 percent at the beginning of the year.

IE's main competition, Firefox, held a 16 percent share of all Internet-connected computers. That's up from 13.7 percent at the beginning of the year.

Apple Inc.'s Safari held 5.1 percent, up from 4.7 percent at the beginning of the year.

Net Applications also debuted a beefed-up presentation of its survey results. As part of that, the firm showed off a map displaying Mac share by state headlined "Democrats vote for the Mac?"

The states with the highest percentage of Mac users, in order, were Hawaii (15.9 percent), Vermont, (15.1 percent), California (12.8 percent), Oregon (12.7 percent), New York (12.3 percent), Alaska (11.9 percent), and Massachusetts and Maine (both 11.2 percent).

The states with the lowest percentage of Mac users were West Virginia (3.5 percent), Mississippi (3.7 percent), Alabama (4.5 percent) and South Carolina (4.6 percent).

Net Applications noted the similarity to the map of blue and red states during the 2004 presidential election.