Firefox Is Back on Top of Chrome

Net Marketshare
Rebecca Greenfield 517 Views Oct 2, 2012

Looks like we weren't the only Internet users that got fed up with Chrome's constant crashes, as the latest numbers show its popularity has been waning a smidge. The chart above shows worldwide mobile browser market share over the last 12 months. Back in May Chrome's adoption numbers just about matched Firefox's. And, at the end of last year, after a year of huge growth, different numbers found the Google made browser surpassed Firefox as the number two most popular browser, just behind Internet Explorer. But since then—perhaps because of the constant flash crashes, or that hip Internet Explorer campaign—Firefox has regained the No. 2 spot, according to numbers from Net Marketshare. Another way to spin the numbers is that Firefox's sped up six-week new release schedule attracted more users.

But looking closer at the numbers, it seems like it wasn't really any one of these things, just a slow chipping away at Chrome's loyal user base. Here's the exact breakdown of losses and gains, from Ars Technica's Peter Bright:

Internet Explorer and Firefox are essentially unchanged, each gaining 0.03 points to 53.63 and 20.08 percent respectively. Chrome has dropped 0.27 points to 18.86 percent, Safari picked up 0.16 points for a total of 5.26 points, and Opera edged up slightly, by 0.04 points to 1.62 percent.

 

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