What’s The Fastest Growing Web Browser and Why Should You Care?
By Anna Johnson on May 6th, 2010According to April 2010 data from NetApplications, Google’s web browser Google Chrome now has 6.73 percent of the web browser market. Chrome increased its share by 0.6 percent over March, making it the fastest growing browser.
Practically all of Chrome’s market share gain came from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which declined from a 60.65 percent share to a 59.95 percent share of the web browser market. Mozilla Firefox gained just 0.07 percentage points to 24.59 percent from March to April, while Safari dropped from 2.37 percent to 2.30 percent.
Will Chrome keep on growing and end up overtaking Firefox? Maybe not any time soon, but it sure is gaining traction. Firefox seems to unable to crack the 25 percent share mark.
Internet Explorer has continued its steady decline in browser share. It had 66.97 percent in August 2009… 62.69 percent in December 2009… and looks set to keep on losing share!
NetApplications bases its findings on tracking the web browsers that visit some 40,000 websites. For more information about the company and its methodology go here.
Here is NetApplications’ breakdown of the web browser share for April 2010:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer: 59.95 percent
- Firefox: 24.59 percent
- Chrome: 6.73 percent
- Safari: 4.72 percent
- Opera: 2.30 percent
- Opera Mini: 0.79 percent
- Other: 0.86 percent
Why is it important to know about trends in web browser usage?
Because what people use to view your site directly affects how well they can view, use it, subscribe to it and BUY from it.
In other words, you’ll want to make sure that most, if not all, of your target market can view and use your site properly… which means you’ll want your site to be viewable and usable by the web browsers they use.
To this end, I suggest periodically checking your website statistics to see the breakdown of web browsers used to access your website(s). You can then determine whether and the extent to which changes are necessary to ensure such site(s) are visible and functional for most of your targeted visitors.
If you find, for example, that most or a significant number of people access your site using Internet Explorer 7 then you’ll want to test your site out in Internet Explorer 7… and if it doesn’t display properly… redesign it (or get someone to redesign it) so that it does display and work properly!
