Browsers that have been built by Microsoft and Mozilla have taken off some of their rather precious user share in January, while Google has broken out of a months-long issue by actually grabbing what its own rivals lost, and then some more.

According to California-based analytics vendor Net Applications, the user share of Internet Explorer (IE) and Edge which are the estimated portions of all personal computer owners who did run those browsers – fell by half a percentage point to about 16.5% in January.

How badly was the effect?

  • After a one-month reprieve from losses – IE+Edge did indeed have a climb in December whereas Microsoft’s browsers did return to their long-time pattern of decline.
  • Together, both the two browsers did also run on about 19% of all Windows PCs, or even on slightly less than one in about five systems. This was indeed ever the lowest-ever share of Windows PCs for the pair and it also stood in much contrast to the 52% that was taken note of for nearly about two years ago.
  • January 2016 stop serving security updates to most of the editions of its kingpin browser thus forcing customers to upgrade in most of the instances. Many did switch to browsers.
  • IE collapse has no doubt been Microsoft’s rather biggest browser defeat, and then the inability of Edge to capture much of Windows 10 audience has rather been the second-largest failure of the company. In other words, Windows 10 users have rejected Edge.
  • Mozilla’s Firefox shed about two-tenths of a percentage point, ending the month at 10.85%, and this was the browser’s lowest share since September 2016.
  • Chrome did pick up about eight-tenths of a percentage point in January, which happens to be the largest increase since the time of the same month of 2017.
  • Chrome has been the biggest recipient of this dual decline of Microsoft’s IE as well as Mozilla’s Firefox.

Conclusion

Net Applications does calculate user share by detecting the respective browser agent of those who tend to visit its clients’ websites. It then tends to tallies the various browsers, thus accounting for the size of each country’s online population to a better estimate share in regions where it also lacks large numbers of analytics customers.

The top browsers indeed have their own roles to play and do make their impact on the users. They compete with each other and try to attract maximum users. In the process, they do cut into each other users’ body and this does affect their performance levels at a given point in time. Being rivals they try to grab the cake of the other and naturally this indicates that the competition is indeed stiff and much effort is required for survival in the market.

Users have to be encouraged and for this money has to be spent on required technology in order to impress upon them the importance of browsing on their respective browser.