Edge now has over eight percent of the desktop browser market, gaining half a percentage point between March and July 2020. Chrome, however,has fared even better with over a three and a half percentage increase, giving it a share of over 70%.

We last reported on browser market share in April with the headline Edge Becomes Second Most Popular Desktop Browser. At that time NetMarketShares 12-month chart looked very similar to the way it does now:

 As we remarked then the picture painted was of Chrome being:

on another planet with the rest just fighting over the crumbs.

There are even fewer crumbs to go around now but it is clear that Edge is consuming the lion's share, even though Firefox has regained around a fifth of a percentage point since its low in March, though the gap between them is wider - in favor of Edge: 

However, Edge isn't doing as well as you might imagine. Over the past year, Internet Explorer, which really should be declining faster than it is, has declined from a share of 7.50% to 4.23%  Now that Edge, which initially was limited to Windows 10, has undergone a heart transplant - it is now based on the Chromium engine - it is compatible with earlier versions of Windows. So why hasn't it mopped up all that share?

We've commented before on how every update of Windows 10 brings with it a new attempt to make people adopt Edge as their default browser. You'd think that given how easy it is to adopt  Edge, it would be forging ahead. It isn't.

Could it be that Microsoft's attempts to force Edge down users' throats with regular nags to make it the default, making it uninstallable and other arm-twisting tactics are generating a backlash?

As for Firefox, even Mozilla seems to have given up on it. Last month we reported Mozilla VPN Goes Live. This is the subscription service that offers enhanced security and privacy to users and is hoped to provide a revenue stream for Mozilla. Prior to its launch it was known as Firefox Virtual Private Network but has now been rebranded. Although users of Mozilla VPN won't be restricted to Firefox as their browser, they will need a Firefox account, which, if there really is antipathy to Firefox, may rub off onto Mozilla's new offering. Could it be that in the future we will know Mozilla as something other than the home of Firefox as it dwindles away to zero market share?

Firefox still has speed advantages over Chrome and surely it should benefit from not being associated with either Google or Microsoft. So its decline is both disappointing and worrying for anyone who values the overall sustainability and health of an internet not dominated by commercial interests.

More Information

Browser Market Share from NetMarket Share

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