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The Share game: Usage Share of Internet Browsers ...
Wikipedia has a very good historical overview of the 'Usage share of web browsers' by years as reported by several analytical research firms including Net Applications (NetMarketShare), StatCounter, W3Counter, Wikimedia, et al.
Originally a Netscape user before moving on to Internet Explorer (v4,x) in mid-1997 as secondary then primary, I've been using Mozilla's Firefox as my primary and default Desktop/Laptop browser since mid-2004 when it was still in beta, so I have a particular focus on it's share decline and on share increases of Microsoft's new Chromium-based Edge which is now my secondary desktop browser.
Released in November 2004, Firefox usage grew to a peak of 32.21% according to Statcounter at the end of 2009 with version 3.5 overtaking Internet Explorer 7, although not all versions of Internet Explorer as a whole. Firefox then started to decline and IE continued to decline in competition with Google's Chrome which was released in September 2008. By July of 2016 when NetMarketShare started reporting browser usage share Chrome had captured 55.5% Desktop share. Foxfire held 15,3% and Internet Explorer held 14.8%
Mozilla's Firefox's Desktop Browser Usage Share is still slipping. Although substantially behind Google's Chrome is it still #2 or is it #3 behind Microsoft's Edge or #4 behind Safari and EDGE?
It depends on what analytics firm is reporting (Net Appliance or Statcounter e.g.) and whether EdgeHTM-based Edge Legacy is being added to the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge as NetMarketShare does unlike Statcounter who ranks Edge #4 behind Firefox and and Safari with Legacy Edge even lower.
"By March of this year Firefox's share had dropped from 8.27 per cent in December to 7.19 per cent, allowing Edge to slip ahead with 7.59 per cent according to NetMarketShare. The trend, if not the positions, can be seen in the data of other analytics services, such as Statcounter, which showed Edge share growing to a barely detectable 0.57 per cent since its January debut, while Legacy Edge slipped. The Statcounter figures, however, still put Microsoft's great hope a distant fourth even when one combines the figures for both incarnations of Edge. Firefox remained comfortably second and Safari is third. Though Statcounter puts Moz's finest second. Chrome was still top dog by a huge margin." theregister.com
Windows Central also discusses this and asks 'Who's on Second, Microsoft's Edge or Mozilla's Firefox?' in the prior post here: Message 32888968
This is global desktop browser market share reported by NetMarketShare for the month of July:
This is desktop global browser market share reported by Statcounter for the month of July:
This is desktop browser market share for the US only from Statcounter for the month of July:
This is desktop browser market share reported by NetMarketShare from 2016 to 2020
