The Most Popular Browsers

From the statistics (collected since 2002) you can read the long term trends of browser usage.

Click on the browser names to see detailed browser information:

2016 Chrome IE Firefox Safari Opera

November 73.8 % 5.2 % 15.3 % 3.5 % 1.1 %
October 73.0 % 5.2 % 15.7 % 3.6 % 1.1 %
September 72.5 % 5.3 % 16.3 % 3.5 % 1.0 %
August 72.4 % 5.2 % 16.8 % 3.2 % 1.1 %
July 71.9 % 5.2 % 17.1 % 3.2 % 1.1 %
June 71.7 % 5.6 % 17.0 % 3.3 % 1.1 %
May 71.4 % 5.7 % 16.9 % 3.6 % 1.2 %
April 70.4 % 5.8 % 17.5 % 3.7 % 1.3 %
March 69.9 % 6.1 % 17.8 % 3.6 % 1.3 %
February 69.0 % 6.2 % 18.6 % 3.7 % 1.3 %
January 68.4 % 6.2 % 18.8 % 3.7 % 1.4 %
2015 Chrome IE Firefox Safari Opera
December 68.0 % 6.3 % 19.1 % 3.7 % 1.5 %
November 67.4 % 6.8 % 19.2 % 3.9 % 1.5 %
October 66.5 % 6.9 % 20.0 % 3.8 % 1.4 %
September 65.9 % 7.2 % 20.6 % 3.6 % 1.4 %
August 64.0 % 6.6 % 21.2 % 4.5 % 2.2 %
July 63.3 % 6.5 % 21.6 % 4.9 % 2.5 %
June 64.8 % 7.1 % 21.3 % 3.8 % 1.8 %
May 64.9 % 7.1 % 21.5 % 3.8 % 1.6 %
April 63.9 % 8.0 % 21.6 % 3.8 % 1.5 %
March 63.7 % 7.7 % 22.1 % 3.9 % 1.5 %
February 62.5 % 8.0 % 22.9 % 3.9 % 1.5 %
January 61.9 % 7.8 % 23.4 % 3.8 % 1.6 %
2014 Chrome IE Firefox Safari Opera
December 61.6 % 8.0 % 23.6 % 3.7 % 1.6 %
November 60.1 % 9.8 % 23.4 % 3.7 % 1.6 %
October 60.4 % 9.5 % 23.4 % 3.9 % 1.6 %
September 59.6 % 9.9 % 24.0 % 3.6 % 1.6 %
August 60.1 % 8.3 % 24.7 % 3.7 % 1.8 %
July 59.8 % 8.5 % 24.9 % 3.5 % 1.7 %
June 59.3 % 8.8 % 25.1 % 3.7 % 1.8 %
May 59.2 % 8.9 % 24.9 % 3.8 % 1.8 %
April 58.4 % 9.4 % 25.0 % 4.0 % 1.8 %
March 57.5 % 9.7 % 25.6 % 3.9 % 1.8 %
February 56.4 % 9.8 % 26.4 % 4.0 % 1.9 %
January 55.7 % 10.2 % 26.9 % 3.9 % 1.8 %
2013 Chrome IE Firefox Safari Opera
December 55.8 % 9.0 % 26.8 % 3.8 % 1.9 %
November 54.8 % 10.5 % 26.8 % 4.0 % 1.8 %
October 54.1 % 11.7 % 27.2 % 3.8 % 1.7 %
September 53.2 % 12.1 % 27.8 % 3.9 % 1.7 %
August 52.9 % 11.8 % 28.2 % 3.9 % 1.8 %
July 52.8 % 11.8 % 28.9 % 3.6 % 1.6 %
June 52.1 % 12.0 % 28.9 % 3.9 % 1.7 %
May 52.9 % 12.6 % 27.7 % 4.0 % 1.6 %
April 52.7 % 12.7 % 27.9 % 4.0 % 1.7 %
March 51.7 % 13.0 % 28.5 % 4.1 % 1.8 %
February 50.0 % 13.5 % 29.6 % 4.1 % 1.8 %
January 48.4 % 14.3 % 30.2 % 4.2 % 1.9 %
2012 Chrome IE Firefox Safari Opera
December 46.9 % 14.7 % 31.1 % 4.2 % 2.1 %
November 46.3 % 15.1 % 31.2 % 4.4 % 2.0 %
October 44.9 % 16.1 % 31.8 % 4.3 % 2.0 %
September 44.1 % 16.4 % 32.2 % 4.2 % 2.1 %
August 43.7 % 16.2 % 32.8 % 4.0 % 2.2 %
July 42.9 % 16.3 % 33.7 % 3.9 % 2.1 %
June 41.7 % 16.7 % 34.4 % 4.1 % 2.2 %
May 39.3 % 18.1 % 35.2 % 4.3 % 2.2 %
April 38.3 % 18.3 % 35.8 % 4.5 % 2.3 %
March 37.3 % 18.9 % 36.3 % 4.4 % 2.3 %
February 36.3 % 19.5 % 37.1 % 4.5 % 2.3 %
January 35.3 % 20.1 % 37.2 % 4.3 % 2.4 %
2011 Chrome IE Firefox Safari Opera
December 34.6 % 20.2 % 37.7 % 4.2 % 2.5 %
November 33.4 % 21.2 % 38.1 % 4.2 % 2.4 %
October 32.3 % 21.7 % 38.7 % 4.2 % 2.4 %
September 30.5 % 22.9 % 39.7 % 4.0 % 2.2 %
August 30.3 % 22.4 % 40.6 % 3.8 % 2.3 %
July 29.4 % 22.0 % 42.0 % 3.6 % 2.4 %
June 27.9 % 23.2 % 42.2 % 3.7 % 2.4 %
May 25.9 % 24.9 % 42.4 % 4.0 % 2.4 %
April 25.6 % 24.3 % 42.9 % 4.1 % 2.6 %
March 25.0 % 25.8 % 42.2 % 4.0 % 2.5 %
February 24.1 % 26.5 % 42.4 % 4.1 % 2.5 %
January 23.8 % 26.6 % 42.8 % 4.0 % 2.5 %
2010 Chrome IE Firefox Safari Opera
December 22.4 % 27.5 % 43.5 % 3.8 % 2.2 %
November 20.5 % 28.6 % 44.0 % 4.0 % 2.3 %
October 19.2 % 29.7 % 44.1 % 3.9 % 2.2 %
September 17.3 % 31.1 % 45.1 % 3.7 % 2.2 %
August 17.0 % 30.7 % 45.8 % 3.5 % 2.3 %
July 16.7 % 30.4 % 46.4 % 3.4 % 2.3 %
June 15.9 % 31.0 % 46.6 % 3.6 % 2.1 %
May 14.5 % 32.2 % 46.9 % 3.5 % 2.2 %
April 13.6 % 33.4 % 46.4 % 3.7 % 2.2 %
March 12.3 % 34.9 % 46.2 % 3.7 % 2.2 %
February 11.6 % 35.3 % 46.5 % 3.8 % 2.1 %
January 10.8 % 36.2 % 46.3 % 3.7 % 2.2 %
2009 Chrome IE Firefox Safari Opera
December 9.8 % 37.2 % 46.4 % 3.6 % 2.3 %
November 8.5 % 37.7 % 47.0 % 3.8 % 2.3 %
October 8.0 % 37.5 % 47.5 % 3.8 % 2.3 %
September 7.1 % 39.6 % 46.6 % 3.6 % 2.2 %
August 7.0 % 39.3 % 47.4 % 3.3 % 2.1 %
July 6.5 % 39.4 % 47.9 % 3.3 % 2.1 %
June 6.0 % 40.7 % 47.3 % 3.1 % 2.1 %
May 5.5 % 41.0 % 47.7 % 3.0 % 2.2 %
April 4.9 % 42.1 % 47.1 % 3.0 % 2.2 %
March 4.2 % 43.3 % 46.5 % 3.1 % 2.3 %
February 4.0 % 43.6 % 46.4 % 3.0 % 2.2 %
January 3.9 % 44.8 % 45.5 % 3.0 % 2.3 %
2008 Chrome IE Firefox Safari Opera
December 3.6 % 46.0 % 44.4 % 2.7 % 2.4 %
November 3.1 % 47.0 % 44.2 % 2.7 % 2.3 %
October 3.0 % 47.4 % 44.0 % 2.8 % 2.2 %
September 3.1 % 49.0 % 42.6 % 2.7 % 2.0 %
August 51.0 % 43.7 % 2.6 % 2.1 %
July 52.4 % 42.6 % 2.5 % 1.9 %
June 54.2 % 41.0 % 2.6 % 1.7 %
May 54.4 % 39.8 % 2.4 % 1.5 %
April 54.8 % 39.1 % 2.2 % 1.4 %
March 53.9 % 37.0 % 2.1 % 1.4 %
February 54.7 % 36.5 % 2.0 % 1.4 %
January 54.7 % 36.4 % 1.9 % 1.4 %
2007 Mozilla IE Firefox Safari Opera
November 1.2 % 56.0 % 36.3 % 1.8 % 1.6 %
September 1.2 % 57.2 % 35.4 % 1.6 % 1.5 %
July 1.4 % 58.5 % 34.5 % 1.5 % 1.9 %
May 1.3 % 58.9 % 33.7 % 1.5 % 1.7 %
March 1.3 % 58.7 % 31.8 % 1.6 % 1.6 %
January 1.5 % 58.6 % 31.0 % 1.7 % 1.5 %
2006 Mozilla IE Firefox Netscape Opera
November 2.5 % 60.6 % 29.9 % 0.2 % 1.5 %
September 2.3 % 62.1 % 27.3 % 0.4 % 1.6 %
July 2.3 % 62.4 % 25.5 % 0.4 % 1.4 %
May 2.3 % 63.0 % 25.7 % 0.3 % 1.5 %
March 2.4 % 64.7 % 24.5 % 0.5 % 1.5 %
January 3.1 % 66.0 % 25.0 % 0.5 % 1.6 %
2005 Mozilla IE Firefox Netscape Opera
November 2.8 % 68.9 % 23.6 % 0.4 % 1.5 %
September 2.5 % 75.5 % 18.0 % 0.4 % 1.2 %
July 2.6 % 73.8 % 19.8 % 0.5 % 1.2 %
May 3.1 % 71.6 % 21.0 % 0.7 % 1.3 %
March 3.3 % 72.5 % 18.9 % 1.0 % 1.9 %
January 3.4 % 74.5 % 16.6 % 1.1 % 1.9 %
2004 Mozilla IE Netscape Opera
November 16.5 % 76.2 % 1.7 % 1.6 %
September 13.7 % 79.0 % 2.0 % 1.7 %
July 12.6 % 80.4 % 2.2 % 1.6 %
May 9.5 % 81.9 % 2.4 % 1.6 %
March 7.9 % 82.8 % 2.8 % 1.4 %
January 5.5 % 84.7 % 2.4 % 1.5 %
2003 Mozilla IE Netscape Opera
November 7.2 % 84.9 % 2.6 % 1.9 %
September 6.2 % 86.6 % 2.7 % 1.8 %
July 5.7 % 87.2 % 2.7 % 1.7 %
May 4.6 % 87.7 % 3.3 % 1.4 %
March 4.2 % 88.0 % 3.4 % 1.2 %
January 4.0 % 84.6 % 4.0 %
2002 AOL IE Netscape
November 5.2 % 83.4 % 8.0 %
September 4.5 % 83.5 % 8.0 %
July 3.5 % 84.5 % 7.3 %
May 2.8 % 86.7 % 7.3 %
March 3.0 % 86.1 % 7.7 %
January 2.8 % 85.8 % 7.9 %

IE = Microsoft Internet Explorer

Firefox = Mozilla Firefox (identified as Mozilla before 2005)

Chrome = Google Chrome

Mozilla = The Mozilla Suite (Gecko, Netscape)

Safari = Apple Safari (and Konqueror. Both identified as Mozilla before 2007)

Opera = Opera (from 2011; Opera Mini is included here)

Netscape = Netscape Navigator (identified as Mozilla after 2006)

AOL = America Online (based on both Internet Explorer and Mozilla)

Browsers are free for users because of the market competition.
Having the highest market share is very important for revenue, since they highly
depend on users searching with their browser.

Take Firefox as an example:

Mozilla have a deal with Google who pays them money for having Google as their
default search engine.
This deal is worth nearly $1000-million (a billion dollars), for a three year period.
(Source: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/go...)

ither they are:

1. Chrome, IE, Safari = built by companies that wish to use the browser as a way to retain
users on their platform, such as Google or Microsoft or Apple

2. FireFox = open source

3. Opera = free due to the above competition

By no means is development cost zero, nor is it an easy task to keep up with the internet.
Unfortunately, even Mozilla is heavily sponsored by Google, so in a sense, all major browsers
are in some way pawns in a larger battle, not necessarily driven by consumers/users.

Originally Netscape tried to survive as a pure web browser play, but were ruined by Microsoft
when they dumped the market with a free product and leveraged their monopoly by pre-installing
it on all Windows machines, which pretty much was every computer at the time.
How Chrome became king
When Google Chrome was released in late 2008, the web browser world was already in flux.
Internet Explorer, bloated by years of monopoly, was under vicious guerrilla attack by Mozilla
Firefox. In the five years prior, Firefox had climbed up from two percent of the market to nearly
twenty, siphoning users from IE, which bled out from 95 percent to 75 percent in the same time.

And the version of Internet Explorer that Firefox was stealing users from was a real dog. IE 6
(supported from 2001 to 2008) was, and is, widely reviled as one of the worst pieces of tech
garbage ever. It was rife with security issues, offered poor support for the day's web standards,
and lacked now-basic features like tabbed browsing that were present in the competing Firefox.
When IE7 came out in 2006 it was much improved, no doubt spurred on in part by the looming
threat of Firefox. But the true browser golden age was ushered in by Google Chrome.

While Internet Explorer continued to hemorrhage users, the speedy upstart Chrome gave Firefox
competition that was much more serious than anything it had faced before. A 2010 article from
Slate sums up the fantastic effects of the frenzy:

Browsers keep getting faster. Mike Beltzner, the director of Firefox at Mozilla, told me recently
that his browser's "javascript engine"which runs complex, interactive Web applications like
Gmail or Google Mapsis 20 percent faster in the new Firefox 3.6 than in the previous version.
Keep in mind that the previous version was released just last June. Can you think of anything
else in the world that can get 20 percent better in only a few months? When I asked Beltzner how
coders managed that feat, he pointed to his rivals. "Were there not other competitors who were
just as interested in making Web browsers faster, I don't know if we'd be able to find the gains
that we can find," he said. "Now it's a game of one-upping each other."

Competition!

Skip forward to today and we're facing a different scene. Chrome is squarely the browser to beat.
Through a combination of better distribution and heartier code under the hood, it bested Firefox
to took the seat on Internet Explorer's vacant throne. Modern counts have Chrome's market share
as high as 50 percentnothing close to IE's once monolithic lead, but still way out in front, with
little to fear.


CC BY 3.0/Daniel.Cardenas
Like any far-and-away leader, Chrome seems to have lost its edge. It's a hellish battery drain on
laptops, especially on OS X. Vague but pervasive dissatisfaction lead various tech writers
including meto break up with it in public. And seemingly in response, Google has started to
address Chrome's failings, updating the browser to block Flash and tweaking rendering behavior,
both in order to squeeze out better performance.

But there's a bigger problem for any potential Chrome quitters: a distinct lack of anything worth
getting excited about. Yes, Internet Explorer has come a long way from its troubled past, Firefox
is still chugging along, and Apple's Safari is better than its ever been, but none are mind-
blowingly good enough to counter Chrome users' inertia. Chrome's competitors aren't attracting
hopeful immigrants, just angry refugees. With its new look, new name, new features, and new
guts, Microsoft Edge might have what it takes to kickstart a new arms race.
Building the next great browser
A browser looks simple when you're stalking exes on Facebook or trolling celebs on Twitter, but
actually bringing one into being is a Herculean effort. "Browsers aren't trivial to build," Drew
DeBruyne, Director of Program Management for Microsoft Edge told me over the phone. "There
are very few organizations in the world, whether they're companies or open source organizations,
that can mount that sort of effort." And the deeper you go into a browser's inner workings, the
easier it is to see why that's the case.

Imagine your browser as a car, the digital jalopy in which you cruise down the Information
Superhighway, memes and #whatevergates ticking by you like telephone poles. The part of your
browser you're actually using to drive is its user interface. The most basic components of this
have been the same for ages: address bar, bookmark folders, back button, refresh.

But other, rare and ingenious innovations have actually changed the game. Like tabs,
which bubbled up from a tiny browser in 1997 and wormed their way into Mozilla, or the
Omnibox, Chrome's combined address/search bar. Both redefined the way we use the web.

Microsoft Edge has a few tricks up its sleeve as well. Edge comes with Microsoft's Cortana voice
assistant built-in, bringing the sort of voice control you're used to on your phone onto your
desktop as well. It also comes with an Instapaper-style "Reading mode" to strip web writing from
busy (and sometimes god-awful) layouts into a form that's easier to digest, ads and whatever else
be damned. All that on top of a design that's stark and modern.

When you visit a website, you aren't actually visiting some sort of "page" as if you were flipping
through a magazine. When you type in an address or send out a query, your browser initiates a
conversation with a web server somewhere. Your browser introduces itself and the server replies
with a stream of datatailored as specifically as possible for your exact browser and device.
From there, it's up to your browser to take this databroken up into countless packetsand
build a page on the spot, as fast as it can. This is the work of what's called a rendering or layout
engine.

Here's a clip from a slow-mo visualization that shows how Gecko, the Firefox rendering engine,
builds a page.

Every browser has a rendering engine, but some of them share DNA, and virtually all of them
date back decades. Firefox's Gecko engine has roots that go back to Netscape Navigator in 1997.
Apple's desktop Safari browser uses an open-source engine called WebKit, which was born out
of code from a late 90's browser called Konqueror. Chrome used to use the very same engine
the strength of which ultimately contributed to its success over Firefoxbut in 2013, it started
taking the code in a new direction and took to calling this parallel version "Blink."
There are all sorts of things in a rendering engine that can make a browser fast or slow. If the
engine does more work than is strictly necessary, or spends a lot of time checking and accounting
for old, outdated standards and technology, that will slow the load process down. Decisions as
simple as what order to render things like text, images, or embedded stuff like YouTube videos
and tweets contributes to speed (and the perception of speed) as well.

Google Chrome stands as a great historical example of how this can affect your day to day
browsing, and how those effects can change over time. Chrome's engine spends resources to
render tabs you aren't looking at. Initially this made Chrome feel snappy, as Slate pointed out in
2010. No waiting for a load when you switch tabs! But here in 2015 with heavy web pages,
sophisticated web apps, and power-users that juggle 30 tabs, that same distribution of resources
made Chrome devour RAM and battery until Google scaled it back.

It's easy to see how a faster rendering engine could be an important gun in Edge's arsenal. Edge
is the first browser to use Microsoft's brand new (and closed source) EdgeHTML renderer. Like
Blink or Gecko, EdgeHTML isn't entirely new; it's a modified version of the Trident engine that
was introduced to run Internet Explorer in 1997. But this new tricked-out version of Trident has
been ripped down to the studs to eliminate as much old cruft as possible.

Windows 10 will ship with two browsers, Edge and Internet Explorer 11, with IE 11 remaining
essentially unchanged. That redundancy gives Edge the freedom to abandon cumbersome legacy
functionality, the freedom to say, "Nope, that page is too old, go use IE instead." It's an
absolutely crucial break according to DeBruyne: "It allowed us to keep Edge as clean and slim as
possible, without any of the burden of IE-specific technologies."

So does it work? Boy oh boy, does it ever. I've spent time using preliminary versions of Edge
through Microsoft's Windows Insider Program, and back to back with Chrome, the improvement
is pronounced and lovely. It's not just the speed at which Edge loads in web pages (which is fast),
but also its pacing. Where Chrome has a tendency to load pages piecemealan image here, a
block of text thereEdge loads with a pause, then an all-at-once snap. There's a rhythm to it:
load...POP, load...P

But the benchmark numbers bear out Edge's general prowess. The ludicrously detail-oriented
AnandTech found that Edge has best-in-class scores on several common speed benchmarks. And
that speaks not only to the strength of its rendering engine, but its Javascript engine as well, the
sub-engine of the browser that handles forms and buttons and virtually everything you interact
with on the modern web.

Even better, Edge has even managed to improve a bunch since the debut of its rendering engine,
which speaks to the speed at which it can continue to advance. And all the while, it's stayed out
ahead of competitors that have been improving as well.
But is Edge sharp enough to draw blood?
Microsoft Edge has a lot going for it as it leaps into the fray, and DeBruyne attributes much of
that to Edge's brazen newness. "It was not easy to decide to build a new browser, purpose-built
for Windows 10, and make a break from the past," he says. "But it created a big opportunity for
us because it makes for a much lighter weight browser."

And it's a call that's not without its drawbacks. Take the bit about being purpose-
built for Windows 10. Edge is bound to Windows 10, full stop. It's not on your
Android phone, or iOS. It won't come to Macs or Linux or even older versions of
Windows. A Windows 10 laptop or tablet is the price of admission. Maybe someday
that will change, but Microsoft has been adamant that it has no currently plans to
complicate the simplicity of Edge by considering any other platforms.

That's a massively limiting factor. Even Apple's Safariwhich has come packed in with Macs
for over 10 years and iPhones from day onestill lags behind the competition by most counts.
Much of what helped Chrome gain its ubiquity is that it's available on virtually anything with a
screen. Ditto Firefox. As such, tab- and data-syncing between phones and laptops have spoiled a
good many of us for anything less seamless.

That's not to mention that mobile browsing in general is perpetually on the rise, and Edge won't
be on either of the two largest phone platforms. DeBruyne is quick to point out that Windows 10
is technically an OS that will also run on phones, and Edge will make a mobile debut that way,
but how many Windows Phones have you seen out in the wild? And phones that run full
Windows 10 out of the box haven't even been announced yet.

The caveats don't end there. Edge is launching without features that we've come to take for
granted as building blocks of the modern browser. Most notably Edge currently has no support
for extensions right nowa sticking point that kept many Firefox users from migrating to early
Chrome.

But for all its considerable weaknesses, Edge still comes from a position of strength for a brand-
new browser. As DeBruyne is keen to mention, the difficulty of entering the space isn't just
building something, but delivering it as well. "It's very important to have a way to distribute your
new work. Of course for Google, that was Google.com. For operating system vendors, it's the
operating system, whether that's iOS, or OS X, or Windows 10."

Of those options, Windows 10 is a uniquely good conduit. Like Windows 7 before it, Windows
10 is "one of the good ones" and the bad taste of Windows 8 has left anyone who hasn't defected
to OS X or Linux positively starving for a change. Moreover Windows 10 is free for the vast
majority Windows faithful and ostensibly the last major update Microsoft will ever release as it
transitions into perpetually maintaining Windows 10 as a service, rather than a product on which
to iterate.
Even though Edge locks out plenty of people for nowpeople like me, who have a MacBook
and an Android phoneit stands to improve all browsers. Edge doesn't need to steal millions of
users from Chrome. It just has to pose a credible threat.

So far, that outcome is promising because for all its missing features, lack of cross-
platform support, and lack of mobile apps, Microsoft Edge has a crucial new feature
I haven't seen in years: I actually want to use it. It's a browser I'm excited about.
Enthusiasm is perhaps the greatest edge Microsoft could wield against an army of
browsers that for the moment are mostly content to just not get too much worse. A
full-on browser war between Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft is one fight worth
having.
In August we discussed a few of Chromes rivals. Did it encourage you to try another browser?
The latest StatCounter browser statistics provide the facts

Worldwide Desktop & Tablet Browser Statistics, July to August 2016

The following table shows browser usage movements during the past month.

Browser July August change relative

Chrome 58.40% 58.44% +0.04% +0.10%

Firefox 13.96% 13.96% +0.00% +0.00%

IE11 7.38% 7.52% +0.14% +1.90%

oldIE 2.38% 2.30% -0.08% -3.40%

Edge 2.79% 2.88% +0.09% +3.20%

Safari 4.15% 4.23% +0.08% +1.90%

iPad Safari 5.60% 5.38% -0.22% -3.90%

Opera 1.75% 1.76% +0.01% +0.60%

Others 3.59% 3.53% -0.06% -1.70%

Worldwide Desktop & Tablet Browser Statistics, August 2015 to August 2016

The following table shows browser usage movements during the past twelve months:

Browser August 2015 August 2016 change relative

Chrome 52.97% 58.44% +5.47% +10.30%

Firefox 15.60% 13.96% -1.64% -10.50%

IE11 9.94% 7.52% -2.42% -24.30%

oldIE 6.05% 2.30% -3.75% -62.00%

Edge 0.74% 2.88% +2.14% +289.20%

Safari 9.30% 9.61% +0.31% +3.30%

Opera 1.79% 1.76% -0.03% -1.70%

Others 3.61% 3.53% -0.08% -2.20%

(The tables show market share estimates for desktop browsers. The change column is the
absolute increase or decrease in market share. The relative column indicates the proportional
change, i.e. Edges user base grew 3.2% last month. There are several caveats so I recommend
you read How Browser Market Share is Calculated and StatCounter vs NetMarketShare.)

More from this author

JavaScript: 2016 in Review

Browser Trends December 2016: Mobile Overtakes Desktop

7 Reasons Your Website Needs WhoAPI

The middle of the year rarely provides big browser news given vacations and the lack of big OS
and software releases. However, I do not recall a month when less happened! There was barely
any movement in the charts.

Even the twelve-month figures have begun to stabilize. Chrome gained almost 5.5% and Edge
usage has grown since its release this time last year. Unsurprisingly, oldIE usage has more than
halved but the other browsers are mostly static.

Have the browser wars ended?

Browser War I

The first and most bloody browser war raged between Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator
between 1996 and 2001. The web was new and the applications evolved rapidly from one month
to the next. CSS and JavaScript arrived and the browsers competed on innovative features.

Microsoft was fined for questionable business practices, but IE eventually won because it was
better. By 2001, IE6 had a seemingly unassailable 95% market share.

Browser War II

Microsoft had a few competitors:

Opera. The browser had a passionate following, but few people were willing
to pay a $50 license fee when IE and other options were free.

The Mozilla Suite. The Gecko rendering engine was a ground-up rewrite of the
old Netscape HTML parser, but it was stuck in a slow and bloated set of
browser, email, newsgroups, editor, IRC client and address book applications.

An experimental Mozilla browser which adopted Gecko was launched as Phoenix in

September 2002. The application became an immediate hit with developers who had become
frustrated with Microsofts complacency. Trademark disputes led to the name being changed to
Firebird and ultimately Firefox in February 2004.

Another skirmish ensued and Microsoft was forced back into the browser market. Firefox
eventually gained around one third of the market in 2010 but IE held the dominant top spot.

Browser War III

Google released Chrome in 2008. The name was adopted because Google wanted to minimize
the chrome (outer interface) of the browser so users could concentrate on page content. Google
stated they were reluctant to create their own application, but it quickly became evident their
online commercial clout could beat Microsoft especially when IE had become an in-joke for
all that was wrong in the industry.

Chrome overtook IE in June 2012 and has been there ever since. The other vendors took note
and, rather than competing on features, began to simplify and streamline their applications.
(Only the recently released Vivaldi is attempting to buck the trend).

In 2016, few people would notice the differences between Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari and
Opera. Theyre all excellent applications with capable rendering engines. The market has
matured and stabilized. New features are more infrequent, but users are happy regardless of their
choice.

Like any product, the diminished browser differentiation was inevitable. An application can only
survive if it appeals to the masses, so the most successful traits are duplicated while lesser-used
features are dropped. Life may be less colorful, but we finally have what weve been demanding
for twenty years: good cross-browser compatibility.

Worldwide Mobile Browser Statistics, July to August 2016

Mobile browser use has been edging closer to 50%, but dropped 0.88% in August, and now
accounts for 46.31% of all web activity. The long-term trend is clear and mobile should overtake
desktop usage at some point in the next twelve months.

The top mobile browsing applications for the month were:

Mobile
July August change relative
Browser

Chrome 38.56% 39.02% +0.46% +1.20%

iPhone 18.53% 18.77% +0.24% +1.30%

UC Browser 14.39% 14.28% -0.11% -0.80%

 Opera
11.22% 10.91% -0.31% -2.80%
Mini/Mobile

Samsung
6.55% 6.95% +0.40% +6.10%
Internet

Android 7.29% 6.81% -0.48% -6.60%

IEMobile 1.47% 1.38% -0.09% -6.10%

Others 1.99% 1.88% -0.11% -5.50%

Theres little change other than the stock Android browser falling behind the Samsung Internet
browser. Activity often fluctuates more than the desktop market:

1. The mobile market is younger and innovations continue to occur. Features

such as Progressive Web Applications are blurring the line between native
and web apps.

2. Smart-phone vendors can have a significant impact. Users often stick with
the default browser, so successful phones rapidly push applications up the
chart.

That said, mobile OSs have converged to just Android and iOS. Alternatives such Windows
Mobile, Blackberry, webOS, Firefox OS, Symbian and others have all but disappeared. Theres
less choice, but the market has streamlined as people rejected the less-popular options.

Perhaps its a shame, but I doubt well encounter another significant browser war until the web
itself changes dramatically.