There are five top spots in the Internet browser world. For the purpose of this article we will only be visiting the top three (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome). I would, however, be negligent, in not at least mentioning that the #4 position belongs to Safari, with a 3.7% market share, and the #5 position belongs to Opera, with a 1.3% market share.
There are some pretty simple and obvious signs that your relationship just might be in danger. Does your browser just close periodically? Does it freeze up on you for no apparent reason? Is your browser slower than what you expect? Has navigation become more difficult? This article will help you to understand just where you stand.
Internet Explorer
While Internet Explorer claims to be one of the most popular browsers on the market, the truth is in the statistics. Internet Explorer lost the coveted, first place in the market, in January of 2009, when Mozilla Firefox gained a 45.5% market share, surpassing Internet Explorer’s 44.8% market share. Since then, Internet Explorer has steadily lost the air in its cyber balloon. The latest statistics released in April of 2016 report Internet Explorer as having only 5.8% share of the current market (approximately 1 in 20 users). In that same month, it is reported that only 0.1% of the market uses IE8 or older.
What does this mean? Well, after some serious number crunching (I guess I did need all those math classes after all) I came up with a number I think we can all find quite interesting. Only 1 in every 2,000 people in the USA are using IE8 or older. This means the odds that your customer might be using a version of Internet Explorer that is older than IE9 is “1 in 2,000” . It is for this reason we at Online-Access follow the World Wide Web Consortium standards (these are the Guys that make and enforce all of the rules for the Internet) of supporting the current version as well as the last two versions of a browser. Even Microsoft, itself, will not support versions older than IE9. So, using anything older can make for a very rocky relationship!!!Mozilla
Firefox
As mentioned earlier in this article, Mozilla Firefox hit the top of the charts in January of 2009. Mozilla Firefox was a brand new concept, using open-source sharing. Open-source sharing has given us better browsers and a faster, richer, more complex web. And open-source brain power is making the future of the web even brighter. As with many things, the first does not necessarily mean the best. While Mozilla Firefox is continuously updating and improving, and today still holds a 17.5 market share, they left the door wide open for the future success of Google Chrome.
Google Chrome
In March of 2012 Google Chrome (also open-source) moved into first place as the rock star of cyber space browsing. Since March of 2012, Chrome has steadily and rapidly grown in market share from 37.3% to the whopping 70.4% reported in April of this year. Due to its ease of navigation, numerous extensions, ability to import and export, mail to other accounts and to coordinate Calender events, Google Chrome is now the nation’s clear choice for Internet browsing.
Bringing it Home
I think it is statistically clear that Google Chrome is the most widely-used and, apparently, widely-liked Internet browser. With that being said, browsing really is all about personal preference. Here, at Online-Access, no one uses Internet Explorer as a normal practice (but, we do use it to be sure that our work renders correctly in IE9 and newer). Users in our office are split about 50-50 between Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. ME? I’m a Google girl.
So, answer me….. How stable is your relationship?