Comparing TheStandard.com: Quick and Easy and TheCounter.com: Global Statistics Jan 2001:
On the issue of color depth, TheStandard.com’s figures describe nearly 10% of users as using 256 colors or less, 50% using 16-bit color depths and just over 30% using 24-bit or above. 10% were unknown. TheCounter.com describes 6% of users as using 256 colors or less, 55% as using 16-bit depths and a further 36% using 24-bit or above.
On the issue of screen resolutions, TheStandard.com’s figures describe 9% of users as using 640×480 resolution, as opposed to TheCounter.com’s 7%. TheStandard.com describes the proportion of people using 800×600 resolutions as 50% with those using known higher resolutions coming in at 27%. TheCounter.com’s figures for these are 55% and 35% respectively.
In both sets of figures, TheCounter.com has a lower figure for ‘Unknown’ than TheStandard, which may explain variance. Alternatively divergence could be described by differences in the times of sampling or by a distorted sampling from one of the parties.