Chrome continues to dominate the browser world, while Edge gets left behind

Windows 10’s browser is floundering in fifth place behind Safari

You’re likely aware that Chrome is king of the browser world, but the extent of the lead that Google’s effort currently enjoys over its closest rival – Mozilla’s Firefox – might surprise you.

Going by the latest figures from Statcounter, Chrome stands atop the browser hill with a desktop PC market share of 66.87% – that’s very nearly six times greater than Firefox’s share, which stands at 11.44%.

The third-place browser remains Internet Explorer on 7.13%, but the other interesting story here is the fact that Microsoft’s newer browser, Edge, which the firm is trying to push hard alongside Windows 10, seems to be flailing badly (at least according to these stats).

In fact, Edge has actually fallen behind Apple’s Safari, with the latter in fourth place on 5.38%, more than a full percentage point ahead of Microsoft’s browser for Windows 10. Edge is on a rather lowly 4.16% and doesn’t seem to be making any meaningful headway at all, which is doubtless frustrating for Microsoft.

Losing its Edge?

As mentioned, Microsoft is trying to push and constantly improve its new browser, particularly on the security front, although at the same time, we’ve also seen incidents where Edge has fallen short in terms of security – from losing out to hackers through to more recent criticisms of Microsoft’s response to reports of vulnerabilities.

And perhaps there is something of a reaction against a product being ‘pushed’ by Microsoft, anyway, looking back to some of the controversial tactics used to attempt to persuade folks that they needed to take the free upgrade to Windows 10.

Microsoft continues to work extensively on Windows 10’s browser, though, and in recent preview versions of the operating system, we’ve seen a whole raft of tweaks aimed at honing the UI of Edge in various ways.


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