Dwight Watt - Newspaper Article #488 1/22/2020


Question: What are the most popular web browsers?

Answer:

The statistics on which are the most popular web browsers varies a lot and depends on the device you are looking at. Phone statistics will be completely different from numbers for desktops and laptops.

On the phones on Androids the Chrome browser will be a runaway favorite wince Google pre-installs it and people familiar with anyway. For the iPhone obviously then Safari will be favorite as Apple has a tighter OS on apps and Safari is their product.

On the PC and laptop, the field becomes much more open as Microsoft has been including Internet Explorer and Edge in the Windows operating system most places a long time (Europe has some unique rules). However, manufacturers of equipment often also add Chrome along with several other programs when they pre-install Windows. Lastly, it is easy to add browsers to Windows on PCs and laptops (and not a memory or drive space issue) so many people add them.

Statistics I have seen recently (and me sort of averaging them) finds Chrome always on top in the PC market with about 60% of the market. Firefox tends to have about 9% of the market. Safari is found on about 6% of usage however it is usually found on Apple products and is very little usage on PCs. Edge comes in at about 5% although that may change when the new Chromium based product is released in late January 2020. Then comes the surprise. Internet Explorer which has not been updated in years and Microsoft says will disappear with new Edge has about 5% of the market also. Opera has about 3% of the market and then lots of others make up the remaining.

China uses a distinct browser that seems to not be usually counted since only in China, but it can change these rankings some when included.

Looking at that list it is surprising how some browsers have lasted and the current dominance of Chrome. In the early 2000’s IE was the dominant browser and in the late 90s Netscape was which has evolved to Firefox (or some call Mozilla who is the distributor of the product).