What Arabs do on the Internet...

...is not very different from what the rest of the world does.

While researching a couple of requests and additions to the dnswl.org whitelisting data I stumbled upon the “Most popular sites visited by Saudi users” (http://www.isu.net.sa/surveys-&-statistics/pupuler.htm), thanks to the Great Firewall of Saudi Arabia.

Now I do have profound issues against such country-wide web content filtering (and I highly doubt the justification that this is in order to protect local traditional value but suspect more blatant motives), but it is interesting to note that the Saudi users are interested in the same things as the rest of the world: Windows and virus-pattern updates, Google, Yahoo and MSN, stock quotes and (local) news, websites of TV stations (Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya), and travel websites. Additionally, there’s the occasional edification website.

The proxy statistics of most companies around the world will be highly similar (replacing the obvious local-language counterparts). That’s a pretty good thing, actually.