2023 started with a major breakthrough in Microsoft’s browser Edge, as a result of, among other things, a deal with OpenAI. It integrated a version of ChatGPT into the search engine to change an old paradigm: instead of entering keywords into a text box, we would start asking the search engine questions in natural language. He later became co-pilot for navigation.

Also, more functions such as multi-window in the same tab have arrived. Increasingly differentiating itself and gaining share in a market where Chrome continues to dominateSafari, Firefox, Opera, and Edge itself collect debris.

However, considering the potential of its new features and all the strategies Microsoft has implemented to force its users to stay with Edge, Edge’s market share has not increased significantly.

At a loss of 12%…

Let’s see how the desktop browser market has developed over the last five years, according to the data. Stat Counter. A chart that reflects very well what we said before: Chrome dominates, the rest is distributed to others.

To fully understand what’s going on with these alternatives, we’ll remove Chrome from the chart. Competition between minorities developed as follows:

Edge has really grown up. It will increase its quota from 10% a year ago to 12% in 2024.This makes it the second option on the market, thanks to the decline of Safari. Now, it’s still part of the minority browsers group, and as we said, its growth is out of line with how much and well it’s included in 2023. special.

Stay on Edge and tell your friends

For example, The discouraging message Bing displays when we search for “Download Chrome” in Edge. A. banner “There’s no need to download a new web browser. Microsoft recommends using Edge for a fast, secure, and modern web experience that can help you save time and money.”

Image: The Verge.

Once Chrome was downloaded, another message appeared asking us to fill out a survey explaining why we wanted to download a browser other than Edge.

Image: The Verge.

As explained, these are messages. XDA Developers In the analysis of such notifications, damage reputation The browser on the edge of intrusion trying to push too hard to stay in. And not only these, there are others along the same lines, and one in particular has a lot to draw. This is what warns its users that Edge runs “on the same technology as Chrome, with added trust from Microsoft.”

This is an entirely correct message: for a long time, Edge chose to use Chromium, which provided immediate improvements in performance and compatibility but at the cost of losing many things, such as the ability to control its own browser. Whether it’s the cost of updates by Google or its ability to differentiate itself from the rest of the Chromium-based browsers, which are almost all but Safari, Firefox, and little else.

Its last major update, Manifest V3, came surrounded by controversy due to incompatibilities with extensions and ad blockers; A perfect example of the loss of control that switching to Chromium represents. It cannot be said that this decision was wrong; In addition to providing only benefits, it also carried risks and harms.

There are many more examples like this Persistence of Windows accepting Edge as default browser To open links directly from the system even if we have chosen another option as the default browser. Do a search either in Windows Search or in the news widget.

Still, based on the agreement with OpenAI at the beginning of last year, the inclusion of new features has meant: Edge is a much more complete and interesting browsersomething that seemed like an entelechy not too long ago, with the potential to be even more valuable to many people than Chrome.

However, this mixture of good offers and excessive insistence led to only a two percentage point increase in market share.

Featured image | Microsoft, Mockup Studio.

in Xataka | Firefox against all: The browser world is conquered by Chromium.