Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Browser Usage Drops 50% As Chrome Soars (networkworld.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the living-off-the-Edge dept.

An anonymous reader quotes Network World's report about new statistics from analytics vendor Net Applications: From March 2015 to February 2017, the use of Microsoft's IE and Edge on Windows personal computers plummeted. Two years ago, the browsers were run by 62% of Windows PC owners; last month, the figure had fallen by more than half, to just 27%. Simultaneous with the decline of IE has been the rise of Chrome. The user share of Google's browser -- its share of all browsers on all operating systems -- more than doubled in the last two years, jumping from 25% in March 2015 to 59.5% last month. Along the way, Chrome supplanted IE to become the world's most-used browser...

In the last 24 months, Mozilla's Firefox -- the other major browser alternative to Chrome for macOS users -- has barely budged, losing just two-tenths of a percentage point in user share. [And] in March 2015, an estimated 69% of all Mac owners used Safari to go online. But by last month, that number had dropped to 56%, a drop of 13 percentage points -- representing a decline of nearly a fifth of the share of two years prior.

6 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Anti-Trust by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Maybe it's time for DOJ to start taking a closer look at Google. They're using their browser quasi-monopoly to push a lot of other products and services.

    1. Re:Anti-Trust by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Informative

      Perhaps in the future but unlike Microsoft who's goal was to make the web MS only. Google just want to push the standards so they can advertise more. They are not actively trying to stop Firefox users or even I.E. users from using their services. It is just that chime better support the standards and is fast.

      If you are old enough to remember the browser wars. Both Netscape and I.E. were putting in browser specific features. Netscape was using layers while I.E. pushed CSS. Also Active X which risked security over speed because it made the browser a window frame for their own application.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Anti-Trust by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 4, Informative

      You do realise that what you described from the bad old days is almost exactly what Google have been doing with Chrome for some time? The modern Google playbook seems to include custom protocols, supporting perma-beta or "living" standards that are implemented a certain way in Chrome but not actually supported or implemented quite the same way elsewhere, and dropping support for older but widely used functionality. How is this not like Microsoft's playbook from the end of the first big browser war?

      This comment is best viewed in Chrome with a bland, flat design (because there are so may bugs in our rendering that "advanced" CSS like gradients, shadows and rounded corners will break if you look at them the wrong way and they'll break differently in six weeks' time even if you work around the current issues).

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    3. Re:Anti-Trust by Raenex · · Score: 3, Informative

      You prompted me to try it, went to Google's home page (with Firefox 45.7.0). What you claim did not happen. Sorry.

      Ok, I read the other comments, and verified that Google search still pushes Chrome. It just remembers if you say no (or it won't ask if you already have it). My link is to a screenshot of a private IE session (no saved cookies). There's a prompt in the upper-right that says, "Google works better with Chrome. Try it?" And two buttons: "NO THANKS" and "YES, GET CHROME".

  2. Re:Edge is a disgrace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    > Firefox has all but given up trying to improve.

    IDK, Firefox usage share hasn't budged an inch in the last two years and they've been making a lot of big changes. Going to 64 bit, moving to multi-process, consolidating the platforms for add-ons. And those are only a few of the changes they have been working on recently. People complain about how many sweeping changes Firefox is making, so how can you say they've given up?

  3. Re:Edge is a disgrace by jon3k · · Score: 4, Informative

    Firefox has all but given up trying to improve.

    You really don't know what you're talking about.