The free Unix-based Apache Web Server has increased its lead over its rivals, and is now 15 per-centage points clear of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications server, the next in line, according to the July Netcraft Web Server Survey (h ttp://www.netcraft.co.uk/survey). The survey, carried out monthly by automatically polling sites across the Web, found 104,086 sites running Apache, a 35% share of all the sites polled, up from 33% last month. The Center for Supercomputing Applications had a 20% share with 59,084 servers found, down from 23% last month. Netscape-Commerce and Netscape Communications took 7.4% each, and the Center for European Research into Nucleonics managed 6.3%. The survey also showed an increase in the use of Windows NT-based Web servers, now representing 11.1% of total sites, up from 10.5% last month. The Windows NT leader is O’Reilly & Associates Inc’s WebSite server, with 4.5% of the market. WebSite surprisingly stayed ahead of Microsoft Corp’s Internet Information Server at 4%, which had been expected to surge ahead. But security problems are thought to have dampened demand for Internet Information Server: Microsoft issued a patch earlier this month when it was found that remote users were able to take control of machines running it. The figures don’t show whether Netscape Communications Corp or Navisoft Inc servers are running on Windows NT or Unix, as Netcraft can’t distinguish between the two signatures on those servers. So when will the most popular Web Server be appearing on NT? Not any time soon, by the sound of it, as the Apache Group, largely made up of volunteer Unix hackers, says it does not currently have the expertise within the group to do it – though if anyone wants to take the task on, they will be more than welcome. An implementation for Windows NT has been done by a group from Canon Inc in Japan, but it has not been fully evaluated by the Apaches. The Apache project home page is at http://www.apache.org/.
