In terms of browser popularity, Microsoft Edge has surpassed Apple's Safari.

 

According to new statistics from one web analytics organisation, Microsoft Edge is now preferred as a browser by more desktop users than Apple's Safari. In the meantime, Firefox is slipping more behind.

According to statistics from online analytics site StatCounter, Microsoft Edge has surpassed Apple's Safari to become the world's second most popular desktop browser.

In February, Microsoft Edge was on the verge of overtaking Safari in terms of popularity among desktop users, behind by less than a half percentage point (9.54 percent to 9.84 percent). According to StatCounter, Edge is currently used on 10.07 percent of desktop computers globally, 0.46 percent more than Safari, which has plummeted to 9.61 percent.

In terms of browser popularity, Microsoft Edge has surpassed Apple's Safari.

According to new statistics from one web analytics organisation, Microsoft Edge is currently the preferred browser.

Google Chrome is still by far the most popular browser, accounting for 66.58 percent of all desktop users. And Mozilla's Firefox had only 7.87 percent of the market, a considerable decrease from its 9.18 percent share in February. MacRumors was the first to report on the new information.

Edge's advantage over other browsers varies tremendously based on location. In the United States, for example, Edge trails Safari by a wide margin: Edge has just 12.55 percent of the market, while Safari has 17.1 percent. Edge long since surpassed Safari in Europe, with 11.73 percent and 9.36 percent, respectively. More desktop users use it than Apple's Safari. In the meantime, Firefox is slipping more behind.

Firefox never had a large market share to begin with. And it lacks the marketing strength of either Microsoft or Google, resulting in lesser brand awareness — and almost none outside of the technological community, according to Jack Gold, chief analyst at research company J. Gold Associates.

"As a result, I don't think Firefox will ever be more than a niche'alternative' to the other guys," Gold added.

Of course, Safari's major lane is as the default browser on Apple's iPhone and iPad tablet computers. It's a completely different scenario with those gadgets. Chrome has 63.57 percent, Safari has 24.82 percent, and other browsers make up the rest.

Some online analytics firms currently place Edge ahead of browsers – with the exception of the unrivalled Chrome. According to Net MarketShare's most current data, Chrome has a staggering 73.24 percent market share, Edge has 12.93 percent, and Firefox has 4.73 percent. Safari does not even rank among the top four browsers.

Edge's adoption has been sluggish. According to Gold, it initially suffered from speed and compatibility concerns across the web, which drove many users to Chrome. Edge, on the other hand, is now performance-wise equivalent to Chrome, owing to its foundation in the Chromium engine.

Microsoft debuted Edge in 2020, using the same browser technology that runs Chrome. Microsoft not only copied Chrome, but it also expanded support to Windows systems other than 10, including macOS and Linux.

"When Microsoft switched to a Chromium engine, Edge became much faster and more compatible with more websites that, due to the dominance of Google Chrome browsers, were built to be compatible with Chrome rather than the older Edge (it had some unique requirements for full compatibility)," Gold explained.

Microsoft has also been improving Edge's security and privacy, as well as providing "coupons" for individuals who use it to purchase, according to Gold.

Edge also does not have some of the difficulties that previous versions experienced with certain websites.

"And you're no longer need to use Bing as your search engine," Gold said. While customers were never required to use Bing, Microsoft did make switching to Google difficult.

Edge has also been the default browser in Windows 10 and 11, so there's less motivation for people to switch now that it's been improved. "I believe that many individuals just do not bother to download Chrome." "Edge pretty much accomplishes everything they want/need," Gold explained.

At the company's Worldwide Developer Conference in June, Apple unveiled a significant redesign of Safari (WWDC). Many of these improvements, however, drew immediate condemnation from users, who labelled them as "counterintuitive."

Over the summer, Apple went through multiple revisions — both on mobile devices and desktops — and enabled customers to basically revert to the former Safari appearance before to the introduction of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey.

Jen Simmons, an Apple evangelist and developer advocate on the Web Developer Experience team for Safari and WebKit, turned to Twitter in February to ask people why Safari was so disliked and to point out specific flaws.

Simmons tweeted at the time, "Everyone in my mentions is claiming Safari is the worst, it's the new IE."

Simmons invited Twitter users to point out particular flaws and missing features that annoy them or make it difficult for them to construct websites or applications in order to get to the heart of the outrage. "Bonus points for ticket connections," she said.

"We can work on specifics. "Vague hatred is really quite unhelpful," she noted.

Unlike other rival browsers, such as Firefox, Apple's Safari updates are infrequent, with substantial enhancements arriving only once a year. As a result, most new features are introduced all at once. While this may appeal to individuals who loathe regular browser updates, it also means that Safari upgrades and/or fixes are infrequent.

According to MacRumors, Safari has received a slew of complaints in recent years concerning the browser's flaws, user interface and experience, and website compatibility.

In March, Apple released the Safari 15.4 beta, which was said to be "packed" with 70+ new features, including "lazy loading" images to reduce page load times; a dialogue element, which represents a part of an application with which a user interacts to perform a task, such as a dialogue box or window; and Cascade Layers, which allows users to organise styles, such as resets and defaults, up to highest-priority styles, such as components, utilities, and over

Even with improvements, Safari faces an uphill battle.

Safari is Apple-specific, so unless you're a die-hard Apple fan, you're unlikely to utilise it, according to Gold.

"Because Windows machines are still significantly more common than Macs, Edge (and Chrome) have a big installation advantage over Safari," Gold explained. "I didn't see a lot of Safari on Windows adoption."