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

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.

Comments

Vendors no longer require IE

[mprindle]

In years past to use some web based software supplied by vendor you HAD to use IE or it wouldn't work. It's more and more that vendors are not requiring IE and have gone one additional step. They now recommend a different browser like Chrome or FireFox. I have run across a few packages that almost refuse to render correctly in IE.

Re:Vendors no longer require IE

[93 Escort Wagon]

In years past to use some web based software supplied by vendor you HAD to use IE or it wouldn't work.

Since Google chose to split their code base off from WebKit, my fear is we'll start seeing this with Chrome if it becomes too ubiquitous.

I understand that the stated reason for doing this was to drive development of web standards forward... but, back in the day, Microsoft used similar language. It's not like anyone ever says "we're doing everything we can to force you to remain within our control".

Re:Edge is a disgrace

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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?

Interesting side note

[93 Escort Wagon]

I decided to RTFA. The article is actually about the 13% decline in Safari's user share on Mac - the IE/Edge plummet is just mentioned as a small side note. But the submitter spun it to be about MS's browser.

Interestingly, the article says we can't know for certain what the users who've abandoned Safari have switched to... which seems odd. Sure, some Slashdotters may switch user agent strings... but it's hard to argue that average users do. So it should be a simple matter to determine if Chrome's Mac user base has increased commensurately.

I have Excellent karma so I just want to say...

[Quakeulf]

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