Geoff from Portsmouth asks:
What are the most popular web browsers? Does anyone really use Internet Explorer these days? I prefer Firefox myself, with Chrome a distant second. How many people have switched?
Let’s go to the numbers for 2014 courtesy of NetMarketShare. According to their numbers, Internet Explorer was the browser used by 58.94% of people who accessed the Internet from a desktop That’s up slightly from 58.21% of users in January of 2014.
Chrome was used by 20.57% of users, a big jump from 16.34% of users back at the start of the year. Chrome’s gain seem to have come from Firefox’s loss. Firefox started the year ahead of Chrome as the #2 browser and finished in 3rd place.
Firefox is used by only 13.26% of users, down from 18.02% at the start of 2014. Firefox launched a fundraising drive recently asking user to contribute in order to “build an Internet that puts the public good over profit.”
Safari is the preferred browser for 5.9% of desktop users, followed by Opera at less than 1%. Other browsers combined account for less than .5% of browsers.
~ Cynthia
u r right. despite the fact that I use, Google chrome / fire-fox/ maxthon/ hotmail/rediffmail,. I find internet explorer the best of all / reliable one – from my experience point of view.
This information was good to know especially since the browser I use has ended up being used by defalt and not by choice. How can I use the browser I want without being thrown into the one that defaults where I can’t choose what I want to do my searches?
The reason that Internet Explorer is the most widely used is because it comes as the only browser with Microsoft operating systems. So people naturally use it. Then,when/if they learn more about computers they find that IE is not very secure and will look for another browser. Most people that I repair computers for don’t know about Firefox, Chrome or Opera. They just use what was given to them.
Good point Ralph. Though Internet Explorer is much more secure when you take IE 8 out of the picture.