Can Microsoft Edge keep up with its second place in the browser popularity ranking? The figures show a strong rise of the competitor Safari, so that the gap between the two is suddenly very small.

Google Chrome is, was and remains the most popular internet browser on computers around the world. Figures from Statcounter for February 2023 attest Chrome to a market share of 66.12 percent, about six times more than the browser in second place.

Interesting trend

That’s Microsoft Edge since last year. Edge built up a comfortable lead over Apple’s rival Safari with a user share that has hovered between 10 and 11 percent for many months. For its part, Safari has long flirted with the 10 percent mark, but rarely exceeds it. Now Statcount sees an interesting development. While Edge’s market share falls back towards ten percent, Safari’s is climbing convincingly.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Market Share

The difference is small: 10.13 percent for Safari versus 10.85 percent for Edge. So Apple’s default browser is on the rise. Edge has been seeing a decline in numbers for several months, Safari has started a steady rise. If the trend continues, the browser that Microsoft ships by default on all of its Windows computers will no longer be the second most popular. Apple’s software, which is only pre-installed on a fraction of the systems, then becomes more important.

Not a disaster, but embarrassing

This is not a disaster for users. Like Chrome, Edge is based on Chromium, so you don’t have to worry about less developer support. For Microsoft, these numbers mean a certain loss of face, although they’re hard to feel sorry for. Microsoft Edge is a rock-solid browser and a worthy alternative to Google Chrome in our opinion, but Microsoft makes a habit of promoting Edge very aggressively.

Instead of relying on the strength of its software, Redmond tries to ram Edge down everyone’s throat. Reason enough to choose an alternative as a counter-reaction. Microsoft uses the same strategy for Bing. For the sake of completeness, we report that Google is no better. Try browsing to a Google service using Edge and enjoy the ad pop-ups you get. Apparently people are less aware of this.