Web Browser Popularity Analysis for QA

8 min readFeb 9, 2024

As the curtain fell on 2023, the digital landscape continues to evolve at a breakneck pace, with web browsers playing a pivotal role in shaping our online experiences. In this ever-changing ecosystem, understanding browser popularity isn’t just about keeping tabs on the latest trends; it’s a crucial strategy for businesses, developers, and quality assurance professionals to ensure their websites and applications perform seamlessly across a myriad of platforms and devices. The analysis of browser usage statistics becomes an indispensable tool in this endeavour, offering insights that can significantly impact design decisions, functionality enhancements, and overall user satisfaction.

The importance of analyzing browser popularity stems from the diverse and fragmented nature of the internet’s audience. With a plethora of browser options available — each with its unique features, performance metrics, and compatibility quirks — ensuring optimal user experience requires a deep dive into usage data to prioritize development and testing efforts. As we review the year 2023, it becomes evident that browser trends can influence everything from accessibility and user interface design to security protocols and performance optimization.

This article aims to explore the critical role that analyzing browser popularity plays in the web development and QA process. We’ll discuss how shifting browser landscapes can affect web projects, the impact of emerging technologies and some privacy concerns on browser choice, and why staying abreast of browser usage statistics is more vital now than ever. We try to unpack the nuances of browser popularity and its implications for creating robust, user-friendly, and future-proof digital experiences in a post-2023 world.

To illustrate the popularity of web browsers on both desktop and mobile platforms and then by their engines, we will create two datasets: one for desktop and one for mobile. These datasets will include estimated market shares for a few major browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Opera and reflect plausible distributions based on latest known trends on the Internet.

Desktop and Mobile Browsers Market Share

Desktop Browser Market Share (as a percentage of total desktop internet usage):

Google Chrome: 65%
Mozilla Firefox: 10%
Apple Safari: 10%
Microsoft Edge: 10%
Opera: 5%

Mobile Browser Market Share (as a percentage of total mobile internet usage):

Google Chrome: 40%
Mozilla Firefox: 5%
Apple Safari: 35%
Microsoft Edge: 5%
Opera: 15%

These distributions take into account the dominance of Chrome on both platforms, Safari’s strong presence on mobile due to the popularity of iPhones, and the smaller but significant shares of Firefox, Edge, and Opera.

The charts above represent the estimated market share of popular web browsers on desktop and mobile platforms.

Desktop Browser Market Share: As can be seen Google Chrome leads significantly, followed by Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Microsoft Edge with equal shares, and Opera holding a smaller portion of the market.
Mobile Browser Market Share: The competition is closer here, with Google Chrome still leading but by a smaller margin, followed closely by Apple Safari, then Opera with a significant share, and Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Edge holding smaller portions.

These charts provide a visual comparison of browser popularity across the two platforms, illustrating the dominance of certain browsers and the variability in user preferences between desktop and mobile usage. Remember, these figures are estimated and intended for demonstration purposes.

Web Browser Popularity by Engines

To compare browser popularity by their underlying engines for both desktop and mobile platforms, we’ll group the browsers according to the rendering engines they use. This will give us insight into not just the browsers themselves but the technology behind them.

The main browser engines are:

Blink: Used by Google Chrome, Opera, and Microsoft Edge.
Gecko: Used by Mozilla Firefox.
Webkit: Used by Apple Safari.

Based on the estimated market share data previously provided, we’ll aggregate the shares of browsers based on their engines for both desktop and mobile platforms.

Engine Market Share Calculation

Desktop:

Blink: Google Chrome (65%) + Opera (5%) + Microsoft Edge (10%) = 80%
Gecko: Mozilla Firefox = 10%
Webkit: Apple Safari = 10%

Mobile:

Blink: Google Chrome (40%) + Opera (15%) + Microsoft Edge (5%) = 60%
Gecko: Mozilla Firefox = 5%
Webkit: Apple Safari = 35%

Let’s visualize these aggregated market shares for desktop and mobile based on the browser engines.

Desktop vs Mobile Browsers Market Share by Engines

The pie charts illustrate the market share distribution of browser engines on desktop and mobile platforms based on the estimated data:

Desktop Browser Engine Market Share: The Blink engine, used by Google Chrome, Opera, and Microsoft Edge, dominates the desktop market with a significant majority. Gecko (Mozilla Firefox) and Webkit (Apple Safari) have equal, smaller shares of the market.
Mobile Browser Engine Market Share: On mobile, the Blink engine still leads but with a smaller margin compared to desktop, due to the strong presence of Webkit (Apple Safari) in the mobile space. Gecko (Mozilla Firefox) holds a minimal share in the mobile market.

These visualizations highlight not just the popularity of individual browsers but the underlying technology that powers them, reflecting the significant impact of browser engines on web standards, compatibility, and user experience across different devices.

Less Popular Browsers

To discuss less popular browsers on desktop and mobile platforms, we’ll consider browsers outside the major ones we’ve already mentioned (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Opera). Less popular browsers often cater to niche audiences with specific needs, such as enhanced privacy, additional customization options, or extended support for legacy web technologies. While these browsers may not command a large share of the overall market, they play a significant role in offering alternatives that prioritize different aspects of web browsing.

Less Popular Browsers on Desktop:

Brave: Known for its focus on privacy and ad-blocking by default. Brave uses the Blink engine.
Vivaldi: Targets power users with extensive customization options, also based on the Blink engine.
Tor Browser: Focuses on anonymity and privacy, routing traffic through the Tor network. It’s based on Mozilla Firefox.
SeaMonkey: A continuation of the Mozilla Application Suite, offering a web browser, email client, and more in one package.
Waterfox: A fork of Firefox, aiming to provide users with a 64-bit browser when it was not yet offered by Firefox.
Arc: It is based on Blink and is written in Swift for MacOs. It is highly customizable and user-friendly browser.

Less Popular Browsers on Mobile:

DuckDuckGo Privacy Browser: Offers privacy features like tracker blocking and a privacy grade rating for each site. It’s available on iOS and Android.
Firefox Focus: A mobile browser from Mozilla focused on privacy, with automatic ad and tracker blocking.
Puffin: Known for cloud acceleration technology to speed up mobile web browsing by shifting the workload to cloud servers.
UC Browser: Popular in some regions outside the United States, known for its data compression features and fast loading times.
Brave: On mobile, Brave continues its desktop promise of privacy and ad-blocking.

Market share percentages would be much smaller compared to the major players and might not be easily visible in broad market share analyses. However, these browsers are crucial for a diverse and healthy internet ecosystem, providing options that cater to specific user needs and preferences. (As most of them based on the popular engine platforms they can be included into the major statistic during the compatibility testing process.)

Advices for the Effective Product Compatibility Testing for the QA Engineers

Effective compatibility testing is essential for ensuring that web applications and websites function correctly across different browsers, versions, and platforms. Given the diversity of browser usage and the varying popularity of browsers on desktop and mobile platforms, here are some strategies for quality assurance engineers and teams to optimise their browser compatibility testing efforts:

1. Prioritize Based on Audience and Analytics

Analyze User Data: Start by analyzing your website or application’s analytics to identify the most used browsers and versions among your current users. Prioritize testing on these browsers.
Consider Target Audience: The target demographic can significantly influence browser choice. For example, a tech-savvy audience might lean towards using the latest versions of Chrome or Firefox, while corporate environments might use build-in browsers such as Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari or even older versions of Internet Explorer (actually we hope not in 2024).

2. Use Browser Usage Statistics

Global vs. Local Trends: Consider both global browser market shares and regional preferences, as browser popularity can vary significantly by geography.
Desktop and Mobile: Since browser popularity differs between desktop and mobile, tailor your testing strategy to the platform most used by your audience.

3. Focus on Core Browsers

Major Browsers: Ensure thorough testing on major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge) across key versions, especially the latest ones.
Less Popular Browsers: Depending on your user analytics, include tests on less popular browsers that hold a significant share among your audience.

4. Consider Browser Engines

Engine-Specific Issues: Since many browsers share the same rendering engines (e.g., Blink for Chrome and Edge, WebKit for Safari), testing browsers with different engines can help identify engine-specific compatibility issues.
Edge Cases: Don’t forget to test on browsers known for their unique behavior or strict privacy features, like Safari for its Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) or Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP).

5. Automate and Use Cloud-Based Tools

Automation Tools: Use automated testing tools like Selenium WebDriver, Selenide, Cypress or Playwright to automate repetitive tasks and cover more browsers and versions.
Cloud-Based Browser Testing Services: Leverage services like BrowserStack or Sauce Labs to test across a wide range of browser versions and platforms without needing a physical device lab.

6. Include Mobile Testing

Responsive Design: Test the responsiveness of your web application on various screen sizes and resolutions, especially for popular mobile browsers like Safari on iOS and Chrome on Android.
Mobile Features: Pay attention to mobile-specific features and constraints, such as touch interactions, viewport size, and hardware limitations.

7. Plan for Continuous Testing

Regular Updates: Browsers update frequently, so incorporate a process for regular testing on new browser versions.
Feedback Loop: Establish a quick feedback loop to developers for any issues found during testing to ensure timely fixes.

8. Educate Your Team

Knowledge Sharing: Keep your team informed about the latest trends in browser usage, new features, and common issues related to web compatibility.
Best Practices: Encourage developers to follow best practices for cross-browser compatibility, such as using progressive enhancement and avoiding deprecated features.

By following these guidelines, QA engineers and teams can ensure that their browser compatibility testing is both efficient and effective, leading to a seamless user experience across all targeted browsers and devices.