14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is investing big in Microsoft Edge, and all these efforts are already paying off. The company’s new browser is currently the runner-up in the browser race, however, it remains at far distance behind leader Google Chrome.
New statistics provided by StatCounter for April 2022 show that Google Chrome continues to be the leading browser on the desktop, with more than 6 in 10 PCs out there currently running it. The market share of Google Chrome has reached 66.58% last month, according to StatCounter.
Furthermore, Microsoft Edge has managed to increase its market share to 10.07%, which means that approximately 1 in 10 PCs stick with the browser. Microsoft Edge is the default browser on Windows 10 and Windows 11, though the stats seem to suggest that many users are actually making the switch to another app.
Safari, which continues to be exclusive to Apple’s Mac devices, is third in the charts with a share of 9.62%, followed by Mozilla Firefox with 7.87%.
Opera is far behind with 2.44%.
The Microsoft Edge push
While Microsoft’s efforts to increase the adoption of the new Edge seem to be paying off, the browser should theoretically have an even bigger market share.
This is because Edge is offered as the default browser on new Windows versions, but at the same time, giving up on it has until recently been quite a challenge.
Microsoft has made it pretty difficult to change the default browsers in Windows 11, with the company eventually deciding to provide a one-click solution last month as part of a cumulative update. On devices where the update isn’t yet installed, users are required to manually change every extension typically handled by a browser to the new application they want to use instead of Microsoft Edge (such as Edge or Firefox).