Microsoft has the Edge on Safari in the desktop browser wars

AppleInsider

Microsoft Edge has gradually grown in popularity and become the world's second most used desktop browser in the world, knocking Apple's Safari into third place.

Data produced by StatCounter for April 2022 shows Edge as having a 10.07% share of the global desktop browser market in the month. The figure, as well as the first time Edge has reached double-digits, also narrowly beats Safari, which has a 9.61% share.

In reality, the switch in positions occurred in March, as Edge had a 9.65% market share at that time, versus Safari's 9.56%. The results in April, first reported by Macrumors, are more significant due to the wider gap, which settles any potential arguments about data variances.

Edge and Safari are extremely close in StatCounter's chart.

The overtaking of Safari was previously anticipated, as January's report showed Edge to be in a prime position to overtake Safari, after a year of gradual growth.

Though Edge has a major win over Safari, it is a small change in the grand scheme of things. Google Chrome continues to dominate with a 66.64% share, with Firefox in fourth place with 7.86%, Opera with 2.43%, and Internet Explorer at 0.97%.

When expanded to cover all platforms, including tablets and mobile devices, Safari still has a sizable lead on Edge, with a 19.13% market share to 4.07%. Chrome still occupies 64.36% of the overall browser market.

For desktop browser market share on a regional basis, Safari beats Edge in North America with 15.96% to 12.24%, with the lead growing to 17.09% to 12.54% in the United States alone. In Asia, Edge wns with 7.97% to 5.85%, while in Europe, Firefox's 12.58% beats Edge at 11.75% and Safari at 9.34%.

Microsoft Edge, like the leader Chrome, is also available on the Mac.

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opinion

I used to praise Safari but that is getting harder and harder since on many sites it’s functionality fails.

crowley

Gotta say, I prefer the Edge icon. That flat compass design for Safari is never going to grow on me.

entropys

I have noticed increasing compatibility issues with safari lately. But I will say that one of the reasons edge is growing in use is the old Microsoft one: the IT departments in public services and  corporations have started to standardise their internal structures around it. 

lowededwookie

This doesn’t take into account substantially more machines run Windows where Edge is default than macOS where Safari is the default.

Given people are coming to the realisation that Chrome is a memory hog and spies on you, it’s no surprise less people are choosing Chrome and using the default browsers.

As for Safari issues, I’ve not really come across any and frankly if a site says I need to use Chrome then I will simply not use that site. They’re not really doing anything substantial with that Chrome only stuff so why bother with them.

evolut

lowededwookie said:

As for Safari issues, I’ve not really come across any and frankly if a site says I need to use Chrome then I will simply not use that site. They’re not really doing anything substantial with that Chrome only stuff so why bother with them.

Exactly!
Why bother with any browser but Safari?

My feeling is that any site that doesn’t work with Safari is not worth visiting!

edit: Removed my emoji’s… they come out
 gibberish like:  lt;/div>   or:  ߤ䦬t;br>
… when I post from iPhone… what’s up with that AppleInsider?

DAalseth

opinion said:

I used to praise Safari but that is getting harder and harder since on many sites it’s functionality fails.

entropys said:

I have noticed increasing compatibility issues with safari lately. But I will say that one of the reasons edge is growing in use is the old Microsoft one: the IT departments in public services and  corporations have started to standardise their internal structures around it. 

Yes, odd behaviour on sites, and just buggy behaviour in general. I love how bookmarks share through iCloud, but Safari on iPadOS, iOS, and madOS just needs some love from Apple. It’s not as good as the competition any more. 

opinion

Some sites are important for work, study or private errands, to ignore those sites because they don´t function properly in Safari is just impossible.

crowley

lowededwookie said:

This doesn’t take into account substantially more machines run Windows where Edge is default than macOS where Safari is the default. 

So? Taking that into account doesn’t make the slightest odds to Edge overtaking Safari in browser market share.

mattinoz

crowley said:

lowededwookie said:

This doesn’t take into account substantially more machines run Windows where Edge is default than macOS where Safari is the default. 

So? Taking that into account doesn’t make the slightest odds to Edge overtaking Safari in browser market share.

Given a lot of corp systems that required IE to work at all now work in edge that would account for the jump. 

Also who runs only one browser. I know I run safari personal and Firefox for work related but a lot of work has moved to edge to deal with MS backended systems better. So probably move to that full time 

kimberly

DAalseth said:

opinion said:

I used to praise Safari but that is getting harder and harder since on many sites it’s functionality fails.

entropys said:

I have noticed increasing compatibility issues with safari lately. But I will say that one of the reasons edge is growing in use is the old Microsoft one: the IT departments in public services and  corporations have started to standardise their internal structures around it. 

Yes, odd behaviour on sites, and just buggy behaviour in general. I love how bookmarks share through iCloud, but Safari on iPadOS, iOS, and madOS just needs some love from Apple. It’s not as good as the competition any more. 

Agreed.

charlesatlas

opinion said:

I used to praise Safari but that is getting harder and harder since on many sites it’s functionality fails.

Safari is a third-tier browser on my machines. I use Firefox, Chrome, Chrome Canary, Brave and Vivaldi regularly but avoid Safari. Yes, I even prefer Edge and use that on a daily basis, just for one site that breaks on my other browsers. For instance, on Safari and Safari only, it displays the mobile site, which is not something I want to view on a desktop machine. And I hate all the restrictions and choices that Apple makes for me. So few extensions available, too. Not even Privacy Badger. You would think Apple and EFF would be kindred spirits and should work together, but no.

dewme

I've been struggling mightily with one specific issue with Safari for at least the past year: the Frequently Visited feature either works differently on every device I have (including macOS, iOS, and iPadOS) or does not work at all. On my iPhone Xs Max it shows the exact same array of frequently visited sites but never updates based on new sites I visit. On my iPad mini Gen 6 it doesn't show any frequently visited sites, ever, at all no matter how many times I toggle the feature OFF and ON. On other devices toggling the feature ON will cause Safari to create a placeholder where frequently visited sites will be placed as I use the browser, and sometimes they will even start to populate - but then poof - they disappear. After the last Safari update on Catalina, the Frequently Visited feature started working again, but no such luck with Big Sur, Monterey, or iPadOS. 

The equivalent functionality on Firefox works perfectly except that new installs of Firefox pre-populate the frequently visited matrix with links to crap I don't want, which I promptly delete and they stay gone. Additionally, my Firefox configuration including frequently visited links is consistent across all of the platforms I use including Windows 10 and 11, iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Linux. 

If Apple would fix this issue, which I've reported to them on more than one occasion, I'd use Safari a lot more than I do. How such a glaringly obvious problem can persist for such a long time is inexcusable. But what the heck, summer is coming up and maybe they'll put a summer intern on it and finally fix the problem. They apparently don't have anyone else looking at it.

qwerty52

lowededwookie said:

This doesn’t take into account substantially more machines run Windows where Edge is default than macOS where Safari is the default.

Given people are coming to the realisation that Chrome is a memory hog and spies on you, it’s no surprise less people are choosing Chrome and using the default browsers.

As for Safari issues, I’ve not really come across any and frankly if a site says I need to use Chrome then I will simply not use that site. They’re not really doing anything substantial with that Chrome only stuff so why bother with them.

I'm doing just the same.
And I don't use any of the Google's stuff.....