Over the year’s web browsers have evolved and gained new features, each one doing so to battle for our attention. Some provide us with home pages that give us news they believe will be relevant to us, others give us the means to connect to friends via social media, whilst simultaneously surfing the net.
But with all these browsers and so many features, how do we know which is the best web browser and which one we should be using?
UK Web Host Review have put together over 48 interesting web browser facts. These statistics will no doubt open your eyes to information about web browsers you may not have previously known, including worldwide usage, popularity, device preferences, and lots more.
Whether you’re wondering which browser to choose or simply want to keep up-to-date with the latest digital trends, I invite you to read and digest these web browser statistics.
General Browser Statistics
- In 2020, there was over 2 billion websites
- Back in 2018, there were more than 112 browsers
- Web browsers are one of the most popular app categories in the U.S. at 97.6%
- 53% of people have between one to five browser tabs open at any time
- Chrome had the biggest market share in 2019 with 63.37%
Mobile Browser Statistics
- Desktop users choose Chrome as their browser of choice with 71.07% of users opting for it
- Google’s web browser has a 60.63% market share among mobile users
- Mobile users prefer Samsung Internet to Firefox and Opera, coming in third place with 6.85%
- Safari rules the tablet world with Apple’s browsers accounting for 64.12% of the market
- Browser usage for TVs in 2019 was Chrome with 75.47% and Opera with 22.09%
- Chrome would dominate the entire browser market if Apple didn’t control over 70% of the tablet market
OS Browser Statistics
- 88.43% of Android devices use Google Chrome
- Other browsers have less than a 3% market share on Android devices
- Windows users mostly use Google Chrome, taking the lead with 68.30% of users
- Only 1.7% of Windows users choose Opera as their browser of choice
- Safari claims iOS devices with a 93.23% market share
- 4.47% of iOS users prefer Chrome to Apple’s browser
- Chrome accounts for 54.54% of Linux users, with Firefox coming a close second
Browser Popularity Worldwide
- 82.64% of South America chooses to use Chrome to browse the internet, with Safari lagging behind with 5.59%
- Chrome has the highest market share in Africa with 61.68%
- Europe’s most popular browser is Chrome with a market share of 60.66%
- The leading browser in Asia is Chrome holding 67.45% of the market
- Oceania has the highest Safari usage with 31.92% market share
Google Chrome Statistics
- Chrome has over 5 billion downloads on the Google Play store
- Chrome accounts for more than 39% of mobile traffic in the U.S.
- Chrome displays more than 250 million malicious website warnings a month to its users
- 65.94% of users in Wyoming user Chrome, making it the only state where Chrome beats Safari
- Google’s Safe Browsing protects over 4 billion devices
- Chrome can block 79% of phishing sites
Safari Statistics
- 49 out of the 50 states in America say Safari is the browser of choice for mobile users
- Safari accounts for 55.35% of the mobile browser market in the U.S
- 77.88% of the population in Alaska use iOS, with just under 700,000 people using Safari
- Between June 2019 and August 2019 there were over one billion visits via Safari to US government websites
- Steve Jobs wanted to name Safari “Freedom”
Firefox Statistics
- There are over 250 million Firefox users globally
- Firefox’s mobile version has over 100 million downloads for Android devices
- 40% of Firefox source code was written by volunteers
- More than 50% of Firefox users use non-English versions
- 1.3% of users have Firefox’s tracking protection enabled
Internet Explorer and Edge Statistics
- Internet Explorer has now been replaced with Microsoft Edge
- As of August 2020, IE had a web browser market share of 1.20%
- Three-quarters of all IE and Edge users still use outdated web browser versions
- On average it used to take around 30 days for Microsoft to issue IE security updates
- Internet Explorer was founded in 1995 making it the second oldest of the modern browsers, with Opera being the longest standing on the list
- 95% of the online population used Internet Explorer to access the web in 2004. Since then it has been downhill
- IE accounts for 5% of the browser market in the US whereas Edge has 4.22%
- Only 11% of people using Windows 10 in November 2018 used Edge as their browser of choice
- Edge can identify 98% of phishing sites
- Edge can immediately block 89% of phishing sites
Which Web Browser Should I Use?
For general use, Google Chrome wins the battle hands down, with frequent security updates and features that make it so much more convenient and easier to use than the other leading web
browsers. With its dominant market share, it seems clear that it’s rapidly becoming the most used browser on the planet.
However, there are other web browsers that have very specific purposes such as enhanced security and built-in VPN’s which deserve honourable mentions:
Brave
Brave is still in its infancy since it’s release in 2019 but already has proven that it’s features are valuable assets to any user. Brendan Eich, the creator of Javascript and co-creator of Mozilla co-founded Brave and has already managed to amass a user base of over 8.5 million active users.
It’s unique selling points are based around security and have built-in privacy features as well as an ad blocker as standard as well as a built-in VPN.
Opera GX
A special version of Opera built for gamers to help them find the best possible deals on games every day, Opera GX features a gaming-specific home page that shows a deal aggregator as well as a
section to show companies and game app developers giving away games free every day.
It also has a social bar which can include Facebook Messenger and Discord, allowing users to stay involved in their social circles whilst using the browser.
References
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers
- https://financesonline.com/browser-statistics/#link24
- https://www.whoishostingthis.com/blog/2017/07/13/secure-browser/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_web_browser
- https://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/
- https://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/browsers-list
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/579302/top-app-categories-usa-reach/
- https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/web-browsers-are-broken/
- https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share#monthly-201906-201907
- https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worldwide#monthly-201906-201908
- https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/worldwide#monthly-201906-201908
- https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/tablet/worldwide/#monthly-201208-201904
- https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/tablet/worldwide
- https://thegeekherald.com/p/google-chrome-pasts-5-billion-downloads-a-huge-lead-over-mozilla-firefox/
- https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/18/google-will-now-pay-bigger-rewards-for-discovering-chrome-security-bugs/
- https://safebrowsing.google.com/
- https://blog.google/products/chrome/chrome-secure-default-everyone/
- https://mixpanel.com/blog/2018/08/06/the-mixpanel-mobile-study-android-ios-apple-google-facebook/
- https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/12/steve-jobs-wanted-apples-browser-safari-called-freedom/
- https://analytics.usa.gov/
- https://blog.mozilla.org/press/ataglance/
- https://www.cnet.com/news/firefox-shows-we-block-ad-trackers-on-web-not-just-use-ad-blockers/
- https://www.computerworld.com/article/3330239/how-microsoft-lost-the-web.html
- https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2011/11/the-end-of-an-era-internet-explorer-drops-below-50-percent-of-web-usage/
- https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/13/secure_browser_microsoft_edge/
- https://www.securityweek.com/185-million-websites-infected-malware-any-time