Top web browsers 2017: Microsoft returns to losing ways

That was the sound Microsoft's browsers made last month as they leaked user share. Yet again.

According to U.S. analytics vendor Net Applications, the user share of Internet Explorer (IE) and Edge -- an estimate of the world's personal computer owners who ran those browsers -- slid by nine-tenths of a percentage point, ending at a combined 22.2%. The August decline was the largest since January.

It can be difficult to accurately spot short-term trends with Net Applications' data: At times, changes seem more an artifact of the company's methodology. IE+Edge's latest plunge may signal a renewal of losses after a five-month slow-down in the desertion rate, or it could be simply a hiccup.

Overall, however, Microsoft's fortunes remain dark in the browser race. While the share loss in the eight months of 2017 has been just over half that of same period of 2016 -- illustrating a slowing of the bleeding -- IE+Edge has shed almost a full percentage point each month so far this year. If that reduction rate keeps up, the browsers will vanish before this time in 2019.

That's very unlikely to happen.

Even so, Microsoft must stare at browser share reports and wonder when the bad news will end. And where IE and Edge will end up as well.

IE, of course, has been pushed aside by Microsoft, which has assigned it legacy status, with a concomitant no-further-development policy. Internet Explorer will live on, in the form of IE11, even after the retirement of Windows 7 in early 2020, but Microsoft has already dug the browser's grave, if not dropped it in.

Microsoft's bigger problem is the lack of enthusiasm for Edge, the default browser in Windows 10, the forever OS that may never expire. During August, just 20% of all Windows 10 users ran Edge as their primary browser. Edge's share has headed downhill since the operating system's mid-2015 debut - when it accounted for 39% of all Windows 10 - even as the latter's share has grown leaps and bounds.

The more people run Windows 10, the less they collectively like Edge. That's not a good sign for the browser's future.

Because the struggle for share is zero-sum, Microsoft's loss again meant a win for some rivals. Apple's Safari climbed by two-tenths of a percentage point to 3.9%, and Mozilla's Firefox stayed in place, while the generic "Others" category grew by nearly a full point, largely fueled by a big bump in what Net Applications dubbed "Proprietary or Undetectable" browsers.

Google's Chrome, which has taken in most of the IE+Edge refugees, fell by two-tenths of a percentage point in August, ending at 59.4%, or back at the number it held in May.

Net Applications estimates user share by sniffing the browser agent strings of those who visit its clients' websites, then tallying the various browsers and operating systems. It also weights each country's data by the size of its online population to account for areas, such as China, where it lacks large numbers of analytics customers.

July browser share numbers

Microsoft has to take solace from any source it can as its share of the browser market continues to dribble down the drain.

To wit: Even as Microsoft's browser share again declined during July, at least it was a smaller contraction than of late, perhaps giving those in Redmond hope that the worst is behind them and at some point the downward lines on their charts will flatten.

According to data from U.S. analytics vendor Net Applications, the user share of Internet Explorer (IE) and Edge -- an estimate of the proportion of the world's personal computer owners that ran those browsers -- dipped by three-tenths of a percentage point, ending at a combined 22.2%. July's loss was the smallest since March, and the second smallest since December 2014.

At times, browser share data is too fickle for illustrating short-range trends, so the five-month slow-down in IE+Edge declines could be an artifact of the metrics company's methodology. Or it may be the strongest signal yet that Microsoft's browsers may have a share basement beyond which they won't sink.

Exhibit A for the latter: For the first seven months of this year, IE+Edge lost four percentage points, representing a 15% reduction from their Jan. 1 state. Compare that to 2016, when in the same length of time, IE+Edge bled nearly 14 percentage points, equal to a decline of 29%, or more than twice as much as 2017.

Microsoft must get its victories, or even less-drastic defeats, where it can.

Not surprisingly, the slowing of Microsoft's browser share deterioration was tempered by a continuation of a troubling trend for Edge, the default in Windows 10. Last month, just 20% of all Windows 10 users ran Edge as their primary browser, down from 24% a year earlier. Edge's one-in-five share of Windows 10 is the browser's lowest ever showing.

Because the share skirmish is zero-sum, Microsoft's losses translated into rival browser makers' gains. When the former slides less, competitors' growth does as well. Most affected was Google's Chrome, which has been the biggest beneficiary of IE+Edge's nosedive.

Chrome remained virtually flat last month, increasing its share by just one-tenth of a percentage point to post 59.8% for July. Since the start of the year, Chrome has climbed by three points, representing a 6% growth rate. In the first seven months of 2016, Chrome added nearly 19 points to its share, equal to a hike of 58%.

Mozilla's Firefox was the winner for July, putting another three-tenths of a percentage point on its share to reach 12.3%, the browser's highest number in almost three years. Although Firefox currently controls less than half the share it did at its late 2009-early 2010 peak, its recovery from a near-death experience a year ago has been remarkable. In August 2016, Firefox slumped to 7.7% and seemed in danger of vanishing altogether.

Net Applications estimates user share by sniffing the browser agent strings of those who visit its clients' websites, then tallying the various browsers and operating systems. It also weights each country's data by the size of its online population to account for areas, such as China, where it lacks large numbers of analytics customers.

Top web browsers 2017: June numbers show Microsoft's Edge strategy fails

Microsoft's browsers in June 2017 continued their free fall, again shedding a significant amount of user share, an analytics company reported today.

According to data from California-based Net Applications, the user shareof Internet Explorer (IE) and Edge -- an estimate of the proportion of the world's personal computer owners who ran those browsers -- fell by nearly a full percentage point in May, ending at a combined 23.2%.

May's decline was the largest since January, and could signal a resumption of the precipitous plunge IE and Edge experienced in 2016, when the browsers lost more than 22 percentage points, almost half their total share at the start of that year, and ceded the top spot to Google's Chrome.

Microsoft's problem, as it has been since mid-2015, stemmed from two factors: A persistent decline in the demoted-to-legacy IE, which was expected after the launch of Windows 10, and the inability, to put it mildly, for Edge, 10's default browser, to make up the difference. The second was certainly not in Microsoft's projections.

In the last 11 months, IE's share dropped by 41%, while Edge's increased by only 11%. On its own, IE has been under the 20% mark since January, and fell to a new low of 17.6% in May. Meanwhile, Edge stayed flat for the fourth month in a row at 5.6%. All of those ingredients cooked up a debacle.

Projections of the IE + Edge combination hint at an even uglier future. IE and Edge could fall under 20% as soon as this month, and likely by no later than December, according to the 12- and three-month trends in the data.

Although Microsoft has aggressively touted Edge, the effort has not yet paid off. Last month, just 21% of all Windows 10 users ran Edge as their primary browser, down from 29% a year earlier. Some analysts, however, expect Edge to turn toward a larger share of Windows 10 once enterprises seriously start migrating corporate PCs to the new OS, and, more importantly, when they divest themselves of the legacy web apps and intranet sites that require workers to run IE alongside a "modern" browser, like Edge.

May's biggest beneficiary was Chrome, which added four-tenths of a percentage point to its user share, reaching a record 59.4%.Computerworld's forecast -- again using the trends in Net Applications' data -- puts Chrome over the 60% bar by August at the latest.

Mozilla's Firefox, which in the first quarter of 2017 lost four-tenths of a percentage point, recouped half of that last month, climbing to 12%, its highest mark since December.

Net Applications estimates user share by sniffing the browser agent strings of those who visit its clients' websites, then tallying the various browsers and operating systems. It also weights each country's data by the size of its online population to account for areas, such as China, where it lacks large numbers of analytics customers.