Top web browsers 2020: Chrome takes a punch, Firefox stays alive

[Karlston]

Top web browsers 2020: Chrome takes a punch, Firefox stays alive

September wasn't a good month for Google's Chrome browser, which saw a decline in user share; Microsoft's Edge, however, won over some converts.

Ruslan Khismatov / Getty Images

 

Google's Chrome took a punch last month, falling a full percentage point in browser share, while Microsoft's Edge added a third as much to its bucket.

 

Meanwhile, Mozilla's Firefox effectively held steady.

 

According to data published Thursday by U.S. analytics vendor Net Applications, Chrome's September share tanked to 69.9%, falling back under the important psychological bar of 70% for the first time since May. The one-point decline was the largest since October 2019, when Chrome dumped 1.1 points.

 

September's decline meant that Chrome has fallen for two straight months, very uncharacteristic of the browser leader. Chrome last had a two-month downturn in November-December 2019. After that earlier loss, Chrome rebounded by adding four full percentage points over the following three quarters. In other words, while it may be tempting to see any sustained slide as evidence that Chrome has peaked, previous predictions along those lines have been proven wrong. Several times.

 

Computerworld's revised forecast — based on Chrome's 12-month average — stayed on the side of growth, with Chrome's browser pegged to reach 71% by June 2021 and 72% by January 2022. The latter, however, was three percentage points lower than last month's forecast (75% by January '22), illustrating the tenuous nature of Chrome's growth. As Chrome's total climbed, it became more difficult for it to erode rivals' shares, largely because what remained represented core users, those most dedicated to each browser. The sunshine soldiers of Firefox, for instance, were long gone over to the Chrome enemy. Those who have stuck with Mozilla are, by definition, the hardcore or perhaps just stubborn.

Edge and the battle of attrition

Microsoft's browsers in September recovered about a fifth of their massive losses of August, ending last month at a combined 12.7%, or up four-tenths of a percentage point.

 

The gain of September, along with the whacky 1.4-point increase of July and the 2.1-point decrease of August, put Edge and Internet Explorer (IE) at near where the browsers stood at the end of June, before the out-of-nowhere ups and downs began.

 

IE's share remained flat, more or less, while Edge's increased some three-tenths of a point. That's how Microsoft's browsers have behaved of late — since January of this year, in any case — with IE usually taking losses as Edge adds share. At the end of September, IE's accounted for 3.9% of all activity.

 

Edge, on the other hand, closed September at 8.8%, a record for the browser. Since January, when Microsoft released a revamped Edge based on Google's Chromium project code, Edge has added more than 1.8 percentage points to its share. Over the past 12 months, Edge gained nearly 3 points.

 

At that pace (about a quarter of a point per month), Edge should sit at 9.6% at year's end, at 12.8% by this time in 2021, at 14%, give or take, at the end of next year.

 

Those numbers — assuming Edge stays on its growth path — will almost certainly come from Chrome. (There's not a lot of "fat" in any other browser's share to slice off, frankly.) Microsoft knows this, although it's not said as much in plain English, and has decided to compete with Chrome on the business front by emphasizing features and functionality important to enterprises.

 

Edge's next opportunity for a share bump will be when Microsoft releases Windows 10 20H2, the year's fall feature upgrade, which will come with Chromium Edge. What proportion of those who receive Edge will change to Edge is, of course, unknown.

 

Under any conceivable scenario, though, Microsoft has a hard road ahead in its attempt to replace Chrome with Edge. Chrome's current empire, for instance, wasn't built overnight. It took an extraordinary event — Microsoft's abandonment of several versions of IE long before they were to leave support — for Chrome to explode into first place during 2016. Absent a catastrophic move by Google, it seems unlikely that Edge can make inroads in any but an attritional, thus slow, manner.

How do you define victory for a browser like Firefox?

Firefox earned a very small increase — less than one-tenth of a percentage point — to finish September at 7.2%, the second-lowest share since it first pushed towards double digits 15 years ago.

 

Mozilla's troubles, financial and more, have been spelled out often enough that its users likely know they are on a troubled ship. Thus, any month where there are not only no passengers fighting for a spot in a lifeboat, but where some actually climbed the rails back onto the vessel, has to count as a win for the open-source company. September was that.

 

Even so, the forecast is far from sunny, as Firefox remained on a losing trend. Mozilla's browser will, by its 12-month average, droop below 7% in November, under 6% by next July. That's a trajectory more like IE's, if comparisons must be made, than like Edge's.

 

Elsewhere in Net Applications' numbers, Apple's Safari stuck with 3.6%, slight movement upwards caused by rounding. Opera software's Opera did the same, staying at 1% in September.

 

Net Applications calculates share by detecting the agent strings of the browsers used to reach the websites of Net Applications' clients. The company counts visitor sessions to measure browser activity.

 

 

Top web browsers 2020: Chrome takes a punch, Firefox stays alive

 

[Ryrynz]

Not unexpected at all, surprised that Firefox hasn't lost any market share.. that'll happen later this year though.

Based on what I saw Firefox did in fact lose a bit of desktop market share.

[mp68terr]

Are the values only for chrome itself (looks like)? Why not including values for chrome-like browsers? Or even counting chrome-like browsers as an alternative.

[steven36]

3 hours ago, mp68terr said:

Are the values only for chrome itself (looks like)? Why not including values for chrome-like browsers? Or even counting chrome-like browsers as an alternative.

Yes they are some  like when a webpage the video  want play or the website  want work  right  in Firefox . Other reasons would be if your a business and  you use Google or Microsoft services. The Pita is Google is making  the standards of the world wide web  instead of w3c and Microsoft adopting there browser there just endorsing the  Google Wide Web.

 

Google losing 1.1 points dont mean nothing  on desktop  the reason why is people went back to work  people were at home using there PCs more. Now there using Google on there Smartphones more.  Netmarket changes too much from day to day  and month  to month to even be actuate because there  prone to whims in work habits.   I believe others like  StatCounter to be more actuate because they do not flux like NMS does and i been watching the Market every since IE  was the most used browser on Desktop. Also Google's browser  market is 2 times bigger than posted here not only are they the most used on desktop they most used on Mobile and android has more users  than windows.   
 

[steven36]

On 10/3/2020 at 2:29 AM, Ryrynz said:

Not unexpected at all, surprised that Firefox hasn't lost any market share.. that'll happen later this year though.

Based on what I saw Firefox did in fact lose a bit of desktop market share.

According  to StatCounter   Edge Chromium  isn't beating Firefox at all and  the  only thing  really change was more people  use  EDGE Chromium now than EDGE  Legacy.  so only it beat itself  out and M$ had to cheat too do that by forcing it on Windows users.

 

https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-202008-202009-bar

 

https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-202009-202010-bar

 

According  to W3C  EDGE  have 4%  and Firefox  has 4.8 %   so that's 2 results Firefox won Sept . Only way Microsoft beats out Firefox  is if you combine  all   M$ browsers  and there's lots   all the IEs  and EDGE then  market doubles  IE/Edge 8%. But  none is no were near Google Chrome   62% only safari  is the only other browser besides Chrome  that not in the single   digits  is Apple's browser , But W3C  combine  Mobile and desktop.

[mp68terr]

Another interesting point is that 'other' browsers do better (similar) than edge.

[steven36]

1 hour ago, mp68terr said:

Another interesting point is that 'other' browsers do better (similar) than edge.

He's not really  wrong  only thing seems EDGE dont really have enough users  yet to top Firefox   it seems Netmarket  is wrong Firefox  lost marketshare according to SC and W3C. but that changes from day to day  and month  to month ,up and down  for all of them.  SC and W3C  shows  that EDGE  is not growing  as fast  as Netmarket claims  it will  be awhile  before  they match up  .  If EDGE dont have gains they may never match up because  NetMarket is biased  they funded by M$  there  partners.

 

This apply to M$ Browsers  too. There’s something fishy about those Windows 10 market-share numbers

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3032976/there-s-something-fishy-about-those-windows-10-market-share-numbers.html

 

 

The link above  from 2016

Quote

Sadly, I don’t even trust NetMarketShare’s numbers as far as I can throw them. It’s not just that NetMarketShare is a Microsoft partner; this is the market research firm that still has Internet Explorer beating all the other web browsers handily. I don’t think so.

 

They biased  they pro M$ For years they posted IE was ahead of Chrome and others  showed Chrome  way ahead They even dont keep public stats from back then  good thing we have  the news archives  so we don't forget . 

 

Quote

In May 2016, for the first time since Bill Clinton was president, Tim Couch was the first pick in the NFL Draft, and there were about 150 million internet users, IE is not the top web browser at NetMarketShare.

 

Quote

NetMarketShare was the last of the major web browser measurement groups to have IE in the lead. StatCounter had Chrome beating out IE as early as May 2012.

Source: Internet Explorer, the second-place web browser

https://www.zdnet.com/article/internet-explorer-the-second-place-web-browser/

 

And it seems  they doing the same with Edge .

[Ryrynz]

20 hours ago, steven36 said:

According  to StatCounter   Edge Chromium  isn't beating Firefox at all and  the  only thing  really change was more people  use  EDGE Chromium now than EDGE  Legacy.  so only it beat itself  out and M$ had to cheat too do that by forcing it on Windows users.

 

Fair but Firefox has a massive advantage as far as time goes. Edge will eat into Firefox share, you should see this next year, Chrome will also lose some as well, it all takes time.

The feedback is good so the users will come.

[steven36]

1 hour ago, Ryrynz said:

 

Fair but Firefox has a massive advantage as far as time goes. Edge will eat into Firefox share, you should see this next year, Chrome will also lose some as well, it all takes time.

The feedback is good so the users will come.

For someone who  speaks of socialism being so great in other topics here you sure  do root for surveillance capitalism to win. Just saying .

[Ryrynz]

Well it will be pretty great when a working system is set up, one day that's how it'll be I really can't see Humanity clinging to a system that pools so much wealth in such a tiny percentage especially in the advent of AI which will change Humanity in basically the blink of an eye. 

I don't root for any team per se, I just know how that Edge is good and Firefox is facing a losing battle that's all.

[steven36]

1 hour ago, Ryrynz said:

I don't root for any team per se, I just know how that Edge is good and Firefox is facing a losing battle that's all.

That's like when people were thrilled about Windows 10 passing a OS  known  as XP that stop getting  support in 2014 they didn't accomplish nothing they just lost users to other platforms   in 2016.  that's not  even the battle M$ has too win the real battle is keeping Google  and Apple from consuming  the OS market that  makes up the internet as a whole .

 

Firefox is a old browser it's been around for years  it's never been a 1st place browser it use to be a 2nd place  browser before Google , Like IE  that is old it will reach the end of the road one day. But Mozilla don't give up they use to be Netscape and was the #1 browser when the www was young. They will most likely make a new browser like they done before. Servo   is still being developed . The real battle  Microsoft has is getting people to use there browser over Google  and Apple's browsers  other surveillance capitalism Tech outfits .

 

 

Your stuck  in the past  to be precise  the 2000s  when the  only  competitors was IE  and Firefox and  there were no smartphones yet .

 

Debate Swirls Around Browser Market Share  December 02, 2004

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3442841/Debate+Swirls+Around+Browser+Market+Share.htm

 

Stop trying  to beat on a dead Cow  and get ghost from the past stirred  up , the  debate  about market share  is old  as the  www.  The  browsers they talked  about  out lasted most web browser measurement sites of the past.  OneStat.com no longer supplies that data , RezHub.com  and WebSideStory is dead. W3Schools is the only really old one left,  so these sites you read about marketshare  today didn't exist back  in the day and   Google is talking  about removing user strings  that would end the debate forever .