At the start of the millennium, Internet Explorer was synonymous with the web and had over 90% market share. It dominated the browser market until early 2015 with around 46% of web users, against 32% of chrome and 12% of Firefox users. But Microsoft ended its production in 2015 and shifted user attention towards its new browser ‘Edge’. Though Edge is faster, more secure and provides better support for web standards, its userbase is affected because it is only accessible with Windows 10.
Internet Explorer entered the decade boasting to be one of the most popular browsers, but the scenario completely changed by the present. It declined to 21% while Chrome surged to acquire 56% of the market’s chart. Edge too had a very disappointing 2016, as it started the year at 2.8% and finished on 5.3 %. However, Windows 10 started the year with only 10% web users and surged to 24% by the end of it, certainly the result of free upgrade offer for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users.
according to a survey by Steam, Edge is performing better among the gamers. Windows 10 crossed the mark of 50% Steam users, however, this growth came at the expense of the older versions where Windows 8.1 from 10% to 7%, Windows 7 dropped from 56% to 48%, Windows XP from 11% to 9%.
The statistics say that only 22% of Windows 10 users are picking Edge. Windows 10 users however, can opt for Internet Explorer,but it has a very low probability and therefore, presuming that Internet Explorer is only used in older versions of Windows, 32% users have stuck to it. The conclusion derived is that Edge has not proved to be a good replacement of its predecessor.
Meanwhile, in 2016, at Windows 10 anniversary update, Microsoft added an extension support which made Edge compatible with HTML-and-JavaScript extensions supported by Chrome and Firefox. But this hasn’t helped it much against its competitors who are providing better security options.
Firefox ended the year slightly above 12% which is still good, recalling the fact that it fell down to 8% of usage in August. The browser showed up some real hard work in the last four months. After years of working, Firefox has fixed their issues of security and stability, but it still has a long way to go before coming into actual rivalry with Edge, Chrome and Safari.
Another browser Opera also had a disappointing result as its usage remained around 1% whole year. Since the split of Opera Software, and the acquisition of Opera AS, the browser manufacturing half of the former, by a Chinese firm, the browser is facing severe revenue problems.
Brave browser, the new entrant into the market, also failed to attract many users and could even make an appearance in the market share numbers.
