Well, the question was about the most popular - not what everyone uses. With 300+ members, I'd say we have a fairly small sampling and that from a group of fairly advanced users - it's not statistically signficant. To get that, it has to be made a mandatory part of the login process where someone can't get to anything else until that username has submitted an entry - and at the moment, that group is probably more advanced than the typical forum though that will no doubt change as it matures. IMHO, that's far too oppressive a polling method for my taste. Then we may see a significant difference in results. Also, people change (e.g., as people begin using W8 more and more, we may see far more using IE10) the poll is not designed for people to alter their initial feedback results [which would introduce a different type of bias instead]. Thus as more participate, the impact of the release of new versions of browsers, operating systems, add-ons, and popular programs that use the browsers is going to skew the results as initial responders alter their preferences (but can't revise their initial opinions) and less heavily-developmental/design/programming and what I typically call "power users" begin to add more of their views (which I suspect may differ from those who have responded thus far).
Actually, in retrospect, I suppose I should have guessed that FF and Chrome would be more popular with those who've voted - even if I personally prefer IE9 at the moment. For testing and backup and to assist users, I always have updated versions of Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, and IE installed (and updated and with appropriate add-ons and with synchronized settings such as favorites and history and so forth from time-to-time). Periodically, I will use one for a few hours or more just to get a better feel for it - but I can never gain the level of comfort and familiarility I have with IE9 (or the prior versions when they were the most current available) and so I can't really tell you that my reason is as much that it's the best as that it's simply easier for me to use and eventually - often quickly - move back.
Have I had some troubles? Yes, of course. Are there features of other browsers I'd prefer to have that worked better (e.g., automatic refreshing of pages without wiping out work in progress (like a draft response when it occurs - so it would somehow only do those where such consequences would not occur) so I could, for example, see forum updates every 1-2 minutes and be able to see new posts in unsubscribed threads and new threads where email alerts won't work (more like NNTP updates))? Absolutely. Would I like to see equivalent and/or improved security in all of them? Certainly. Is it possible that if I decided to change to any of these primary alternatives that in time I'd grow to like it and consider it preferred over the others? I can't rule that out, but also know I'm not likely to give any of the others (or some not listed that are becoming popular enough that they may be worth having for the same reasons I have more than one other besides IE9) enough of a chance to get to that point. The only way I see that happening is if I begin doing something prolifically where some other browser is so far superior (or that IE9 cannot do) that a switch is mandatory - and at the moment I see nothing like that on the horizon.
But at the end of the day, I'll probably continue to do what I'm doing (I tend to respond in some IE forums and I try to use the products in the forums where I'm responding so I'm more familiar with what people are talking about when they ask questions - or at least I try to have it on my system unless it would be in conflict with something else as with many of the AV products with real-time protection features even if disabled and only installed). I'm still on Vista (hardware upgrade incompatibility) and not yet ready to switch to W8RTM because I think better/cheaper hardware will come out over the next few months and I'll be in a better financial position so I can get what I want and not skimp - or overdo it either (but possibly soon and probably in a multi-boot configuration with one or two other OS now that hard drives are big enough to partition properly). When that occurs, I'll certainly go to IE10 with W8RTM - even without having really tried it out for more than a couple of hours at most (and not a machine I'd configured or included preferred add-ons as I wanted to try it out and not spend the entire time setting options). But each OS will have the most current version of IE as the primary browser and have others installed as I do today for the same reasons.
Tell me, A Guy. You seem surprised about the results about Opera. I've found nothing bad to say about it, but unless I spend much more time configuring it (more than I want), I'm just not comfortable with it - and then I'd be just trying to turn it into IE and I suppose defeating the reasons that you may prefer it. When did you start using Opera, why did you start, what were you using before, and why do you use it now? In essence, see if you can convince me to switch or tell me what you would say to a newbie to convince them to start there before a habit has time to form.
Kosh
