While Internet Explorer is still the dominant browser on the desktop Chrome now has a full quarter slice of the pie. Firefox's share has now dropped to 12%.

With the turn of the month the latest statistics from Net Market Share show that Chrome usage has increased both on the desktop and on mobile devices.

As far as mobiles and tablets are concerned Safari is still the dominant browser with 40% share. This means, however, Safari has lost over 10% share over the past year, a period in which Chrome has more than doubled its share from 14% at the end of April last year to 30% now.

(click in chart to enlarge)

Chrome overtook Android as the second most popular mobile browser in September 2014 and although Android bounced back a little in April 2015, to 18%, there is now a wide gap between them of 12%.

On the desktop Chrome was only ahead of Firefox by less than 1% at the end of April 2014. Now Chrome, with 26%, has more than double Firefox's market share. Chrome has also taken market share from Internet Explorer since the end of 2014.

(click in chart to enlarge)

Net Market Share also provides information about browser versions. This reveals that as far as Internet Explorer is concerned IE11 accounts for almost half with IE8 being the second most popular version. IE6, which Microsoft has been at pains to eliminate since 2011, see Microsoft Steps Up Campaign to Rid World of IE6 is now down to less than 1%. It will be interesting to see how quickly its next browser, Microsoft Edge (aka Project Spartan), pushes Internet Explorer off its position at the top.

The latest version of Chrome, Chrome 42, became the stable version midway through April and had 30% of Chrome share in the month with Chrome 41 on 34% and previous versions accounting for the remaining 36%. By blocking NPAPI plug-ins by default Chrome 42 brought with it a discontinuous change and it may be that some users will stick with earlier versions of the browser.

Firefox is the browser that is most likely to alienate users in the coming months. While its Intent To Deprecate HTTP and its moves towards encryption may sound like moves that will increase secruity and decrease the risk from snooping and surveillance, as far as most Internet users are concerned they are inconvenient and draconian.

Will we see Firefox's share shrink even more? 

Probably. It would need a change of plan to halt the decline.

More Information

NetMarketShare

Related Articles

Chrome Continues To Gain Ground

Chrome 42 Outlaws Java Plugin 

Firefox Losing Share As Desktop Browser

Intent To Deprecate HTTP 

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