For as long as the World Wide Web has been around, there has been competition over the most popular web browser. Many web browsers have joined the extinct software list, or at least become endangered as technology changes.
Way back in April 1996, Netscape Navigator had a 89.36% market share, but now it doesn't even register in anyone's tracking. There will always be new web browsers introduced as long as hardware keeps changing and our lives continue to become more mobile oriented, and companies try to recreate the (sometimes limited) successes of previous ones.
Web browser usage is both a personal choice and a usability choice. It's not something that a retail jeweler can control, which is why all websites should be designed using internet standards that do not necessarily favor one browser over another.
As it turns out, the browser tracking I do across retail jewelry websites seems to closely match the global browser statistics you find here.
A note about the following charts: The percentages shown here are relative to one another for all three device types. The total percentages shown in all three charts equate to 100%.
Desktop Browser Usage
Here's the current trend for desktop web browsers measured across retail jewelry websites in the USA:
Firefox popularity continues to decline while Chrome is currently on a meteoric rise. Chrome overtook Internet Explorer as the most popular browser in April 2014.
When developing a website, it's best to pay attention to the supported HTML features from all browsers and make sure your website will function correctly for your audience.
Here's the table of data for your review:
| Feb-15 | Dec-14 | Sep-14 | Apr-14 | Dec-13 | Aug-13 | Apr-13 | Dec-12 | Jul-12 | May-12 | ||
| IE | 16.43% | 17.52% | 17.88% | 22.99% | 27.58% | 28.22% | 32.14% | 37.41% | 40.28% | 36.95% | |
| Chrome | 27.39% | 24.58% | 25.31% | 19.87% | 12.87% | 14.93% | 13.73% | 11.32% | 11.09% | 12.33% | |
| Safari | 4.88% | 4.25% | 5.15% | 6.03% | 6.29% | 7.09% | 7.09% | 7.81% | 8.34% | 9.79% | 6.97% |
| Firefox | 7.91% | 7.36% | 8.68% | 11.02% | 10.74% | 12.23% | 12.94% | 11.04% | 12.77% | 20.87% | |
| Opera | 0.15% | 0.11% | 0.11% | 0.10% | 0.10% | 0.12% | 0.11% | 0.12% | 0.17% | 0.88% |
Tablet Browser Usage
Here's the current trend for tablet browsers measured across retail jewelry websites in the USA:
As you can see, Safari has been the dominant player in tablet users who visit jewelry websites. Chrome is gaining some ground, but not much and not quickly.
My data always shows that the Apple family of mobile device users is always more interested in jewelry than the Android users.
Internet Explorer is just arriving into the tablet market because of the introduction of the Microsoft Surface Pro.
Here's the specific data for your review:
| Feb-15 | Dec-14 | Sep-14 | Apr-14 | Dec-13 | Aug-13 | Apr-13 | Dec-12 | Jul-12 | May-12 | |
| Safari | 7.93% | 9.18% | 9.12% | 9.47% | 11.67% | 10.45% | 9.44% | 9.32% | 7.74% | 5.29% |
| Android | 0.59% | 0.58% | 0.64% | 0.86% | 0.84% | 0.53% | 0.67% | 0.59% | 0.43% | 0.37% |
| Chrome | 1.09% | 1.15% | 0.89% | 0.77% | 0.72% | 0.49% | 0.49% | 0.25% | 0.02% | 0.00% |
| Amazon Silk | 0.59% | 0.70% | 0.49% | 0.52% | 0.78% | 0.47% | 0.25% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Firefox | 0.03% | 0.02% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.01% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Opera | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.01% |
| BlackBerry | 0.00% | 0.01% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.03% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| IE | 0.21% | 0.18% | 0.21% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
Smartphone Browser Usage
Here's the current trend for smartphone browsers measured across retail jewelry websites in the USA:
Safari continues to dominate in this market because most of the users visiting retail jewelry websites are doing so with an iPhone.
Most of the gain in popularity of the Chrome browser is because of the shift in all internet usage. Some people are abandoning their Windows desktop computers in favor of their Android smartphones. That decline in desktop usage is bringing more people to the daily smartphone usage.
To put it a different way, the continued rise in popularity of smartphone browsers reflects the decline in popularity of desktop and tablet browsers.
I predict that this chart will show a drastic decline of all smartphone browser usage after April 21, 2015, the day Google is reported to change how they rank non mobile-friendly websites.
The average combined usage for all smartphone browsers in February 2015 was 33.39%. As smartphone browsers become more popular, it's no wonder that Google is taking steps to insure that smartphone users are being lead only to correctly formatted mobile sites.
Here's the specific data for your review:
| Feb-15 | Dec-14 | Sep-14 | Apr-14 | Dec-13 | Aug-13 | Apr-13 | Dec-12 | Jul-12 | May-12 | |
| IE | 0.31% | 0.28% | 0.35% | 0.28% | 0.38% | 0.27% | 0.17% | 0.11% | 0.08% | 0.08% |
| Chrome | 11.25% | 11.35% | 8.58% | 5.27% | 3.94% | 2.13% | 0.83% | 0.54% | 0.02% | 0.00% |
| Safari | 18.69% | 19.23% | 16.35% | 16.94% | 17.61% | 15.78% | 13.99% | 12.61% | 10.70% | 8.30% |
| Firefox | 0.33% | 0.12% | 0.12% | 0.13% | 0.10% | 0.04% | 0.08% | 0.04% | 0.03% | 0.01% |
| Opera | 0.14% | 0.12% | 0.20% | 0.12% | 0.08% | 0.15% | 0.16% | 0.07% | 0.15% | 0.21% |
| Android | 2.43% | 2.95% | 4.7 0% | 5.29% | 6.01% | 5.89% | 6.04% | 7.04% | 5.69% | 5.68% |
| BlackBerry | 0.07% | 0.09% | 0.08% | 0.11% | 0.10% | 0.13% | 0.11% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Amazon Silk | 0.16% | 0.06% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
