In the December 2004 survey we received responses from 56,923,737 sites. The gain of 808,722 sites continues the Internet's powerful growth as a medium for communications and commerce, which has continued at near-record pace in 2004 despite a steady drumbeat of security threats.

Trends contributing to the expansion include the growth of retail e-commerce and online banking, as well as lower prices for domain names. Domain registrars and hosting companies say small businesses have been active purchasers of domains and web sites, suggesting that the Internet's benefits as a business tool have overcome fears about Internet security, which are often cited as a factor in delayed adoption of the Web by some small businesses.

In 2004 the Web has emulated the financial market model of "climbing a wall of worry," averaging 911,000 new sites a month amid a wave of security incidents. Prominent security headlines featured the MyDoom DDoS, the Witty worm, a TCP security hole, the spread of the Download.Ject exploit through web sites, a JPEG-based attack, an IFRAME exploit spread through banner ad networks (November), and a year-long surge in phishing attacks.

Trends in the web server sector continue apace, with both Apache and Microsoft gaining sites as their shares hold steady.

Sun is the sum of sites running SunONE, iPlanet-Enterprise, Netscape-Enterprise, Netscape-FastTrack, Netscape-Commerce, Netscape-Communications, Netsite-Commerce & Netsite-Communications.

Microsoft is the sum of sites running Microsoft-Internet-Information-Server, Microsoft-IIS, Microsoft-IIS-W, Microsoft-PWS-95, & Microsoft-PWS.

Platform groupings are here.