Do More People Use Firefox Than Edge and IE Combined? (computerworld.com)

A funny thing happened when Net Applications' statistics began excluding fake traffic from ad-defrauding bots. Computerworld reports: Microsoft's Edge browser is less popular with Windows 10 users than earlier thought, if revised data from a U.S. analytics vendor can be believed. According to Net Applications of Aliso Viejo, Calif., Edge has been designated the primary browser by fewer than one in six Windows 10 users for more than a year and a half. That's a significant downgrading of Edge's user share statistics from the browser's portrayal before this month...

By comparing Edge's old and new shares, it was evident that as much as half of the earlier Edge traffic had been faked by bots. The portion of Edge's share credited to bots fluctuated month to month, but fell below 30% in only 4 of the 19 months for which Net Applications provided data... Microsoft's legacy browser, Internet Explorer (IE) also was revealed as a Potemkin village. Under the old data regime, which included bots, IE's user share was overblown, at times more than double the no-bots reality. Take May 2016 as an example. With bots, Net Applications pegged IE at 33.7%; without bots, IE's user share dwindled to just 14.9%. Together, IE and Edge - in other words, Microsoft's browsers - accounted for only 16.3% of the global user share last month using Net Applications' new calculations... In fact, the combined IE and Edge now face a once unthinkable fate: falling beneath Mozilla's Firefox.
StatCounter's stats on browser usage already show more people have already been using Firefox than both of Microsoft's browsers combined -- in 12 of the last 13 months.

Comments

It's reverse for me, at work.

[Nutria]

Required web-based systems running SAP and requiring 2FA just don't work well with FF, and Chrome refuses to connect to the server (something to do with TLS, no doubt).

Thus, I use IE11 most frequently.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

if you use websites/apps with heavy javascript, chrome is much faster, firefox is a close on second place behind chrome. If you use lots of canvas, firefox wins a little above chrome in speed, edge being far behind it. But this is only the observation I noticed when developing my apps...

But you are right microsoft browsers are again better with such stuff....

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[sanf780]

I wonder, how much of that usage done in the work place can be measured from the outside? I do use IE at work just on the basis of covering my ass: I do not want be the guy that leaked information to the outside world by installing Chrome or Firefox. IE is installed and managed by the IT team, as such, they should come up with standard configurations that are not leaky.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Required web-based systems running SAP and requiring 2FA just don't work well with FF, and Chrome refuses to connect to the server (something to do with TLS, no doubt).

Thus, I use IE11 most frequently.

I have the same problem. But, it's not because there is something wrong with Firefox or Chrome. It's because the web-based systems you need to access are horrendous, poorly written shit, specifically designed to work with Internet Explorer circa 2003, and not ever tested against other browsers.

Edge and IE are completely useless for anything other than the simplest and most basic web browsing, or business applications specifically written to work with them. Out in the real world, both of Microsoft's browsers are years behind FF and Chrome and lack most of the functionality that users have come to expect.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[Nutria]

Out in the real world, both of Microsoft's browsers are years behind FF and Chrome and lack most of the functionality that users have come to expect.

The Real World is where I get my paycheck. Thus, I use IE11.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[AmiMoJo]

IE is installed and managed by the IT team, as such, they should come up with standard configurations that are not leaky.

The first part of that sentence suggests that the second part's assertion is probably false.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[AmiMoJo]

We have the opposite problem. Our sites only work in Chrome and Firefox. We use Google maps extensively and IE11 doesn't work properly. In Edge the maps work but it's implementation of the HTML audio tag doesn't seem to work reliably.

Since none of our customers are without access to either Firefox or Chrome, it's not worth fixing.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[Z00L00K]

Which falls under the category "Company Intranet Use", and that's basically the only reason and use for the Microsoft browsers. For all other use another browser is better.

Re: It's reverse for me, at work.

[orlanz]

We went the middle road. Our company is pretty big. About 3 years ago Central authority wanted to get out of IE7. So they standardized on Firefox. Then for some reason went to Chrome. We guess because a lot of our workforce is mobile and it was a battery hog.

They informed all the devs that the move from IE7 was coming and after 18 months, made Compatibly View off by default. Those apps that didnâ(TM)t adapt can now tell their specific users to configure their browser accordingly.

Oh, and the standard today is IE11, Firefox, and Chrome (updates were horrendous). But all app people dev for Chrome. We still have many legacy internal websites that are IE6/7 only but year-by-year either they adapt or get shutdown or pass on the additional costs to customers.

In another 3 years, other than a handful of widget database front ends maintained due to 5-10 year contracts, pretty much everything is standards compliant. Most use Chrome but only because all the end user howtos use Chrome screenshots.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[Nutria]

But it's just easier to open another IE11 window than to fire up FF or Chrome.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[Bert64]

This was true for me too a few years ago, many applications used to insist on IE6 although often it was just an arbitrary check which if overridden (eg by changing user agent) they would work fine.

Now some insist on chrome, while others will work with anything other than IE. I used to keep a VM for IE6 and a copy installed through wine but i've not used it in years now.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[arth1]

But it's just easier to open another IE11 window than to fire up FF or Chrome.

Not, if like me, you're a Linux user (also at work), and firing up IE means firing up a VM (newer IE versions won't even work in Wine). Even when IE is running in a VM, it's easier to use a native browser.

Re: It's reverse for me, at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, it's not 'stealing' when you fork an open source project and do a better job of developing it than the original developers did. In fact that is exactly how open source is supposed to work! Modification and redistribution is supposed to be possible!

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[CaroKann]

At work I have to use IE, Chrome and Edge.
Some of our internal sites are designed for Chrome, and require Chrome to function. Others require IE to function. With Win10, we also have Edge.
If only our SharePoint sites would work with Edge, then I would ditch IE all together.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[TechyImmigrant]

I have a four or five year old Trendnet switch whose web interface doesn't render properly in Chrome, Firefox or Edge, so I have to use IE unless I want to go telnet or ssh. So there is definitely embedded legacy applications where IE is still needed, but that's about the only thing left that still forces me into IE.

So ssh in.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[tepples]

If you're not using a laptop, there is nearly no reason to use Edge.

True. The exceptions are testing your site in Edge (for the benefit of laptop users) and hypothetically if some desktop PC maker bundles Windows 10 S.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[lsatenstein]

Latest speed tests put Firefox as fastest. Beginning with version 57.1 It is so good that Mozilla has taken out some adverts to toot-their-horn,

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[david_thornley]

I use Firefox and Chrome at work, not IE (and I don't have Edge on this computer). They pay me. I figure this is the real world.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[Nutria]

And when the Intranet timecard web site you must use stops working with FF or Chrome, will you heroically stand on principal, not use IE and thus go hungry because you suddenly aren't getting paid, or will you start using IE?

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[david_thornley]

It works just fine in Chrome. It's not great, but at least it doesn't require IE.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[Nutria]

That didn't answer my question.

Re:It's reverse for me, at work.

[david_thornley]

There is certain software I am required to use. I use it. when I need to. However, this is the Real World, the one that gives me paychecks, and I don't use IE.

Re:Does anyone really care?

[Anonymous Coward]

If so I can't imagine why
We've all got time enough to cry

Re:If so, not for much longer

[rudy_wayne]

I'm sure Mozilla will continue its efforts to drive away Firefox users.

Sadly, yes.

As long as there is someone out there willing to give them hundreds of millions of dollars in free money every year, no matter how much they fuck up Firefox, then things are only going to get worse.

Firefox is abusing its market share

[Anonymous Coward]

It decided to take its trust and waste it on a gimmick for a TV show causing malware alerts and even disrupting people’s exams. Thats on top of the XULocolypse and Pocket. Projects like Pale Moon and Waterfox are minor patches to the Mozilla problem we need a big fork that gets rid of the gimmick developers just like Xfree86 to X.org and EGCS to GCC.

Edge pitches so funny it hurts

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Got a Win10 recently. The homepage that came preloaded out of the box in Edge was some serious comparison stats with chrome. In default apps settings switching out of edge begs "please give edge a chance" or something like that. Looks like the only use for edge is to download chrome or firefox.

There is a God. There is karma. All they did to Netscape! It is justice delayed, no doubt, and all the jerks who did that have cashed out and gone. But I do feel some schadenfreude looking at its problems.

Re:Edge pitches so funny it hurts

[110010001000]

How is it karma, when you just admitted you gave them money getting a Windows 10 machine?

Re:Edge pitches so funny it hurts

[Z00L00K]

So nobody uses FTP anymore?

Re:Edge pitches so funny it hurts

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Corporate IT. VPN support only for win10. what to do?

Re:Edge pitches so funny it hurts

[110010001000]

Obviously: write your own VPN client for Linux!

Re:Edge pitches so funny it hurts

[arth1]

FTP? I still use gopher, you insensitive clod!
(I actually do - some of the documentation I sometimes access is in a local gopherspace, and hasn't been ported to web yet. One day....)

FTP pretty much died as mainstream when NAT routers became ubiquitous. Switching from active (PORT) to passive (PASV) ftp on the client side only worked until the FTP servers themselves were also behind a NAT. NAT on both sides means "forget it", unless the server side has an admin who actually knows what he's doing, and controls both the firewall and the FTP server.

The final nail was the insecurity added because the newer generation of "admins" (and I use this term loosely) didn't understand the FTP protocol, or how to correctly open different ports in different directions, and added rules that also let in hackers. There's likely ten misconfigured FTP firewall rules for each correctly configured one.

Re:Edge pitches so funny it hurts

[John.Banister]

For bringing files from elsewhere to me, the files are also available via http, which is most frequently my means of learning which files I want. For sending files from me to elsewhere, the recipient places provide cPanel for that now, which is easier to use than their FTP documentation.

Re:Edge pitches so funny it hurts

[michael_wojcik]

Kermit? So fancy. I'm posting this via Xmodem.

Re:Edge pitches so funny it hurts

[pop ebp]

FTP pretty much died as mainstream when NAT routers became ubiquitous. Switching from active (PORT) to passive (PASV) ftp on the client side only worked until the FTP servers themselves were also behind a NAT.

If both sides are behind a NAT, HTTP wouldn't work either (without the serious reconfiguration they you mentioned), no?

Re:Edge pitches so funny it hurts

[arth1]

If both sides are behind a NAT, HTTP wouldn't work either (without the serious reconfiguration they you mentioned), no?

HTTP uses a single connection (usually to remote port 80), and you only have to allow return traffic for the same socket.

With FTP, you have two connections, with the second not being determined until after the connection.

With active ftp:
client port ANY -> server port 21
client sends "PORT ,,"
client port X server port 21
client sends PASV
server replies "227 ... (,port X / 256>,port X % 256)"
client port ANY -> server port X

Here, the remote server's firewall has to accept the second request. Unless the firewall can sniff the traffic and parse the 227 reply, the ftp server has to be set up with a pool of ports used for FTP only, and the firewall configured to open those ports to the same clients that are connected to port 21. This is not entirely safe - one ftp client connected can repeatedly try to connect to other ports in the same range, and may get in before another legitimate ftp user, and be able to get his transfers.

Normal consumer NAT routers that have a FTP rule normally only trigger opening incoming connections from port 20 for the same hosts you connect to port 21 on. That won't work if the ftp server is behind a fanned NAT, so the remote connection does not come from port 20.
Passive FTP won't work either if the server is behind NAT, unless the FTP server and its firewall are configured by someone who really know what they're doing. Which means "almost never".

Re:Edge pitches so funny it hurts

[arth1]

Argh. Let me try this again, because < and > ate half of my other post.

If both sides are behind a NAT, HTTP wouldn't work either (without the serious reconfiguration they you mentioned), no?

HTTP uses a single connection (usually to remote port 80), and you only have to allow return traffic for the same socket.

With FTP, you have two connections, with the second not being determined until after the connection.

With active ftp:
client port ANY -> server port 21
client sends "PORT <ipaddr>,<port X / 256&gt,<port X % 256>"
client port X <- server port 20

Note the direction of the arrow - the server connects to the client. This never happens with HTTP.
The client firewall thus has to allow the incoming connection from the server. If the server is behind a simple NAT, the port number is no longer 20, so the client cannot have a fixed rule saying "accept incoming from port 20 from the same hosts we have outgoing to port 21". The server needs to have a NAT firewall where port 20 is not translated to a different port, or the client has to have a firewall that parses packets containing PORT and opens rules based on that. The latter is dangerous, as the client can be tricked.

With passive ftp:
client port ANY -> server port 21
client sends PASV
server replies "227 ... (<ipaddr>,port X / 256>,port X % 256)"
client port ANY -> server port X

Here, the remote server's firewall has to accept the second request. Unless the firewall can sniff the traffic and parse the 227 reply, the ftp server has to be set up with a pool of ports used for FTP only, and the firewall configured to open those ports to the same clients that are connected to port 21. This is not entirely safe - one ftp client connected can repeatedly try to connect to other ports in the same range, and may get in before another legitimate ftp user, and be able to get his transfers.

Normal consumer NAT routers that have a FTP rule normally only trigger opening incoming connections from port 20 for the same hosts you connect to port 21 on. That won't work if the ftp server is behind a fanned NAT, so the remote connection does not come from port 20.
Passive FTP won't work either if the server is behind NAT, unless the FTP server and its firewall are configured by someone who really know what they're doing. Which means "almost never".

You're not going to believe me ...

[eneville]

I use FF heavily at home. Chrome at work. On the phone, however, I use opera most, very light and fast to navigate within a page.

Aww shucks Microsoft

[cyberman27]

Microsoft being Microsoft

Re:What's a Potemkin village?

[DeadSeaTrolls]

But didn't Hillary Clinton tell us that it takes a Potemkin village to raise our trolls?

IEeeee and Edge (of Death) are good for 1 thing:

[grep -v '.*' *]

Downloading Chrome or Firefox (or another browser) at initial OS install. That's it.

That's the only time I ever use them, the only other time is by accident when an app bypasses the default browser setting and renders Help or Status under IE.

Firefox is now being banned on some networks

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got word that Firefox will be completely banned on our network after Mozilla's recent "Looking Glass" advertisement extension injection attack. Our network admins have deemed Firefox to effectively be a form of malware after that stunt. We've been told we'll be spending the next few days removing all traces of Firefox from our network's computers.

I don't know what this will mean for those of us who need to test our software using Firefox. Maybe we'll be able to talk the network admins into allowing us to run heavily isolated VMs with Firefox installed. But more realistically, we'll probably just stop supporting Firefox, as it's already only used by about 4% of our product's users. That puts it well below Chrome, Safari, and IE/Edge. We're even seeing more Opera users than Firefox users these days.

Edge can't even do basic tasks!

[nctritech]

I've got Firefox and use it 100% of the time. I push everyone to it. Microsoft is desperate to move people to Edge and wants us to think it's faster than everything. That's fine, but even if it was the fastest browser ever, I can't even do simple things in it. I've navigated to this very page in Edge and I'll tell you what is missing when I right-click some things:

Save page, undo close tab, view page info, view page source, inspect element, and everything I have add-ons to get. Right-click on an image and you can't view image, copy image, or copy image location, only save it or open the link under it. No bookmark link, save link, or open in private window.

Just tried a page with auto-play video and there was no way to mute the tab like in Firefox. One major feature I love in Firefox is highlighting a non-linked URL or domain name and being able to right-click it and follow it as a link anyway, and being able to highlight and search any phrase on a page is another good one. None of that is in Edge. Edge is NOT a browser for getting things done; it's a browser for crappy tablets and people that have no idea how to internet on them. Even then, that's a bit of a stretch; way too many basic functions are missing to take it seriously. Saving web pages locally was in Netscape and IE in the mid-1990s, for god's sake!

Re:Edge can't even do basic tasks!

[TFlan91]

...Edge is NOT a browser for getting things done; ...

Correction:

Edge is for getting Chrome or Firefox.

Re:Edge can't even do basic tasks!

[Tablizer]

Microsoft screwed the pooch. People sometimes used IE for compatibility. Edge came along and was neither compatible with IE nor had many features. Since people saw that IE is being phased out for Edge, they had no reason to keep using IE and no reason to use Edge because its feature-poor. Edge could someday catch up, but people won't wait around.

MS forgot the main reason people use MS is compatibility and familiarity. They keep losing when they try to compete on raw merit. Edge is yet another example.

Re:Edge can't even do basic tasks!

[John.Banister]

I remember back in the 1990s, IBrowse would save the source URL and time of download as metadata to any files I saved locally. I always liked that feature, because when the back of my mind nagged me to go collect something else I saw, I always remembered the location as "the same place I got this other file."

Re:Edge can't even do basic tasks!

[Tablizer]

Windows is dying as a home OS. If an Edge turn-around happens, it will be in the office, and Google has deep pockets, unlike Netscape.

Re:Edge can't even do basic tasks!

[houghi]

I have used Firefox since Netscape 1.0 thgat came on a floppy with my first Internet Access to be installed on Windows 95 (without IE).
I recently started to use Chromium, because it has happened way to often now that plugins don't work when they do an update, including Firefox ESR.
It gets a bit tiresome to seach for ones that work

The two things that I miss is:
1) No tabs in the favorites
2) Warning about my selfs signed website at home

Things that did not work in the latest Firefox ESR : about 7 plugins I really, really like and use. There might be alternatives now, but the last 4 times I needed to look for alternatives is not a good thing.

Re:Edge can't even do basic tasks!

[nctritech]

Yeah, it's really shitty how they handled the Eich thing (Note: I'm NOT endorsing that site, the specific article just has some good points) but I'm not downloading "faggot social justice leftists," I'm downloading a browser, a tool to get things done. Just because a bunch of people working at a tech company have shitty beliefs doesn't mean I should avoid them entirely on principle. The same could be said about Google; the company is notoriously "left-leaning" which is really "identity politics authoritarian-leaning" if we want to be honest, yet I use YouTube and Google Calendar all the time at no cost to me, and I don't think much about the company's ideology.

Now when these entities decide to screw me over in some way, I'll start moving away from their offerings. YouTube has screwed around enough to make me start putting my stuff on other platforms just in case YouTube continues to do dumb shit.

Re:Firefox sends user data to Google and others

[Bert64]

Use a third party build of Firefox or Chromium... A few people produce such builds which have all the telemetry stuff either removed or disabled by default. If you're concerned about the binaries these projects provide, grab the source and build it yourself.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:What's a Potemkin village?

[Bert64]

It's common for malware or other http tools (eg vulnerability scanners) to pick a user agent that looks like a normal browser, and traditionally most of those used IE...
You might also get an IE useragent string by default if using some of the built in microsoft functions for making http requests (which it would make sense for bots to do, reuse functionality already present on the host).

Re:IEeeee and Edge (of Death) are good for 1 thing

[luvirini]

>They're not even especially good that one thing.

They are specially bad at that single purpose on a server with the protected mode on...

Re:If so, not for much longer

[swm]

My wife kept hitting this, especially when viewing Amazon or Etsy.
I couldn't figure out the problem and the only fix is to kill FF.
Google searches like "Firefox memory" turn up nothing recent or relevant.
Finally she gave up and switched to IE.
Sigh...

Re:Cyberfox

[hyades1]

Pale Moon's not a bad choice, either.

Thanks for "Cyberfox". I'll give it a try.

Honestly, I just don't get it

[sunking2]

In the end they're all just web browsers, and all pretty much get the job done. I'll use whatever happens to be available. I'll typically install iron but won't cry myself to sleep if it isn't available. The only thing I really care about is an adblocker.

Of course I come from the days of Mosaic and waiting for images to download on a 9600 baud modem and we were happy for it. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the advances, but in the ends its a web browser.

Re:Honestly, I just don't get it

[StormReaver]

...but in the ends its a web browser.

With the Web being the gateway to information in the modern age, a Web browser is an essential utility. Saying that a Web browser is, "just a browser" is like saying that a consistent water source is, "just a source of water."

Both of them are essential for participation in society, and controlling one or the other conveys to the owner an enormous amount of power. That is why Microsoft tried so hard to own the Web in the 90's.

Re:Honestly, I just don't get it

[4wdloop]

I support GP. Your answer did not explain what advantages a browser developer has over his competitors.

I thought back then who controlled the browser controlled the definition of HTML/JS and hence had advantage in of providing tools and server software, which is where the money was. Is it still true provided better open standards exist nowadays?

Re:Honestly, I just don't get it

[sunking2]

You obviously put more value in surfing the internet, which is what 90% of it is, than I do. Not having tabs to me isn't exactly the same as suffering from dehydration.

Can you recommend alternate browsers?

[Futurepower(R)]

"Use a third party build of Firefox or Chromium."

Can you recommend 3rd party builds? I need a browser that respects my choices of add-ons.

Pale Moon 64-bits seems more stable than Firefox 56.0.2, so I use Pale Moon.

Waterfox sometimes brings up a message from anti-malware software I use, "Waterfox wants to act as a server." Scary.

Re:Can you recommend alternate browsers?

[Bert64]

"Wants to act as a server" means it wants to open a port, have you checked as to *why* it might be doing this as there's probably a rational explanation (eg endpoint for a voip connection, p2p etc).

It's unlikely that malware would attempt to open a listening port as this action is easily detectable both by the software you're using and by external port scans.

Re:Firefox sends user data to Google and others

[tepples]

I've temporarily moved to Edge because it's not Chrome, and it's not FIrefox

For others in a similar situation, is Edge worth $119.99 for the required Windows license?

Trust, once lost, is not easy to win back

[mark-t]

Microsoft lost a lot of trust with a lot of users over the the years with how MS handled issues with Internet Explorer. People don't trust Edge because of what happened previously, and rightly or wrongly, this has led to a lot fewer people using Edge.

And of course, if people aren't willing to give them a chance with a new product, it's that much harder for them to win back any trust.

I'm not necessarily saying Microsoft deserves to be given a second chance, but it seems pretty obvious to me why Edge isn't doing very well today.

This may change quickly

[nehumanuscrede]

if Mozilla pulls another Mr. Robot stunt.

Re:This may change quickly

[jjbenz]

when did they push out that extension? I checked my work machines and home machines and didn't find the extension on any of them.

Edge is really good at one thing

[Tony Isaac]

Downloading Chrome or Firefox!

No script

[AHuxley]

FF protects the user with No script, adblock plus, https everywhere, Privacy badger, ublock, umatrix, disconnect.
Microsoft opens your computer to getting ads.

Re:No script

[Baron_Yam]

I 'cut the cord' almost a decade ago. I honestly don't remember any longer what it's like to watch a television show interrupted by ads.

I feel like I'm being reminded of that old experience when I have to use IE at work, because right now I wouldn't choose to browse the web without several ad and tracking suppressors installed. I really don't understand how anyone tolerates it.

Asshole webmasters playing games with user agent

[knorthern knight]

> PaleMoon fork had a promise, but half of the sites
> I visit refuse to work in it (same with SeaMonkey suite),

I often find in those cases that tweaking the user agent to match a "supported browser" like Firefox 57 makes it work for Pale Moon. In Pale Moon, you can do that directly in "about.config" by creating or modifying a key of type "string". E.g.

general.useragent.override.yahoo.com of type "string" set to

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:57.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/57.0

This reminds me of "the old days", when some sites blocked Firefox, and isisted on IE. I got an extension that changed the user agent to a current IE, and the webpage functioned just fine in Firefox.

I also wonder how reliable all the browser-usage sites are. I wouldn't be surprised if actual Firefox usage is lower than reported, and forks like Waterfox and Pale Moon are higher, but people have to lie about their browser to be allowed in by the website.

and You'll also not going to believe me

[n329619]

I use pen and paper heavily at home. calculator at work. On the phone, however, I call people the most, very easy and fast to communicate with other people.

Of course.

[tlambert]

Do More People Use Firefox Than Edge and IE Combined?

Of course.

No one uses Edge and IE combined; they use Edge, or they use IE; in fact, they are impossible to combine into a single browser experience.

Note: FireFox is doing well at all because there are two popular WebGL game development platforms, whose favorite pig trick is to decide that WebGL isn't supported on anything but Firefox. If you hack the games, however, to remove the browser check, they run fine on Safari and Chrome.

So any popularity of Firefox, such as it is, can like be blamed on sites like onemoreleve.com, and the Firefox-only WebGL propaganda therein.

Re: If so, not for much longer

[thsths]

I agree - Quantum is a massive step forward. It may have broken a lot of plug-ins, but at least it is still a functional and complete browser.

For Microsoft, Edge was also a big step forward, but unfortunately it felt unfinished for quite a while, and it is only now approaching something you could call a proper browser.

It's plausible

[JohnFen]

I don't know, of course, but I do know this: I don't know a single person, either socially or professionally, who uses Edge.

Re:It's plausible

[painandgreed]

I don't know, of course, but I do know this: I don't know a single person, either socially or professionally, who uses Edge.

Of course not, the professional world is still on Win7 so if they use a MS browser, it will be IE. However, new hardware isn't accepting win7 and older hardware is getting too long in the tooth. Win10 is looming and dreading the retraining of the workplace proletariat in an abortion of a UI we don't want to use ourselves.

Re:It's plausible

[JohnFen]

Of course not, the professional world is still on Win7 so if they use a MS browser, it will be IE.

Not in my office. Everyone has to use Win 10, except for a couple of machines used for testing.