Last month put a dent in Mozilla’s plans to try and grow user share for its Firefox browser. Google Chrome continued its climb.
Google’s Chrome added more to its total of utter domination last month as a small recovery by Mozilla’s Firefox screeched to a halt in July. According to data published Saturday by metrics vendor Net Applications, Chrome’s share during July rose eight-tenths of a percentage point, the most since March, to 71%. The browser has been on a seven-month run of gains, adding 4.4 percentage points to its account since January. The only other browsers to enjoy a positive 2020 thus far: Microsoft’s – Edge and Internet Explorer (IE) – and that pair increased their combined share by less than a 10th of Chrome’s. Chrome continues to assimilate other browsers’ share, month after month, with an almost casual cannibalism. Its increases over the past six months, in fact, have been nearly double that over the last 12, hinting at another acceleration of absorption. The only barrier to Chrome remains the minimum shares still held by its rivals. If one assumes that desktop competitors like Apple’s Safari, Firefox, IE and Opera Software’s Opera can, in fact, fall further under Chrome’s assault, dwindling to boutique browser status as they do so, there’s no reason why Chrome cannot, say, capture 80% of the market, perhaps even more, before cresting. On the linear basis of Computerworld’s forecasts – pegged to a 12-month average change in share – Chrome should make 72% by December and 73% by March 2021. Come January 2022, Chrome could hold almost 75%. Chrome’s posterior may be on the throne now, but there’s no reason to think it will be pressed there forever. Every browser that has crushed its enemies has been, eventually, usurped. Netscape Navigator was destroyed by IE, IE by Chrome. It may be an admittedly small data set, but it does point to an eventual eclipse of Google’s browser.
