Top 10 Most Used Web Browsers in the World

Microsoft Edge is the next new thing in the web browsing arena. Microsoft Edge is known to make IE browsers obsolete in the future. The future is unpredictable as the Internet future is constantly changing and evolving. The history of browsers dates back to the 1990s when the first browser known as WorldWideWeb was released. This was the first browser and was the only way to view the web during that time. Tim Berners-Lee innovated this browser on a NeXT Computer while working for CERN. Today, there are many browsers released by different companies with various capabilities. Some of today’s modern browsers include Chrome, Firefox, IE, and Safari. So, which are the most used web browsers in the world in terms of usage and popularity? Here are the top 10 most used web browsers in the world.

10. PhantomJS

PhantomJS is a browser not known to the common internet user because it is a headless and scripted browser used for automating web pages. PhantomJS was released in the year 2011 that was aimed to provide automation on web pages like automatic navigation, screenshots, user interactions, and assertions making the browser the best fit for unit testing. PhantomJS has a similar browser environment as that of Google Chrome and Safari. Companies that use PhantomJS are Twitter, LinkedIn, Netflix, and Time Warner Cable. More than a hundred people have contributed to the development of this open-source project. PhantomJS does not have a graphical user interface making the users seem like ghosts.

9. Android Browser

Android mobile phones are dominating the mobile Operating System arena to a large extent with a high market share. As of 2015, Android mobiles share more than 80% of the world’s mobile usage. This fact indicates the popularity of Android mobile browsers. The Android browser is based on the Blink engine which was previously WebKit. The Blink-based engines have better support for standards. The Android web browser gets updated with new features and security updates after every version of Android.

8. SRWare Iron

SRWare Iron is a pretty new browser released in the year 2008 when compared to the other browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome. Statcounter usage statistics of the browser show that millions of Internet users use SRWare Iron. The browser is available for Windows, OS X, and Linux. The main purpose of this browser is to eliminate usage tracking and other privacy compromising functionality included in the Google Chrome browser. If you do not want your usage to be tracked by anyone then this browser is a big plus for you. As of mid-2015, the software is alleged to be open source. The source code of the software is still not released by the company. There are few features that are available in Chrome but not in SRWare Iron that distinguishes the browser from Google Chrome.

7. UC Browser

UC Browser is a creation of a Chinese internet company named UCWeb that was established in the year 2004. UC Browser is a mobile browser that was originally launched as a J2me-only application and today it is available for Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Phone, and Java ME. UC Browser has a huge market share in China and India. It has become the number one most used browser in India. UC Browser became the number one browser in China, India, and Pakistan by the end of 2014 pipping Chrome and Safari.

6. Mobile Safari

Mobile Safari is the mobile version of the Safari web browser. On January 9, 2007, Mobile Safari for iPhone was introduced to the world. Similar to the web version, the mobile version is popular because Apple’s iPhone being popular all over the world. The browser is crisp and smooth in Apple’s products like iPhone and iPod. Mobile Safari is peculiar stuff in terms of its rendering and multi-media capabilities. Mobile Safari is also known for its WebKit capabilities and compliance with the W3C standards. Mobile Safari along with the web version has improved to a great extent in terms of new features, usability, and security.

5. Opera

Opera web browser is one of the oldest web browsers out there which was released by Opera Software in the year 1995. The freeware browser was written in C++ that is available in more than 40 languages. Opera browser is available for Windows, UNIX, and OS X. Opera browser uses the Blink layout engine. Opera is also available as Opera Mini, Opera Mobile, and Opera Coast for different mobile Operating Systems like Android, iOS, Symbian, Windows Phone, Bada, Maemo, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry. Opera is known for introducing many new features that were adopted by other browsers.

4. Internet Explorer

As Windows Operating System is the most popular desktop Operating System in the world, Internet Explorer or simply IE is the default browser in Windows making this browser the fourth most popular and used browser in the world. This browser is not free as it requires a Windows license to use. The Internet Explorer today has added new features to support the latest web technologies. IE is semi-active browser for Windows and remains discontinued for Unix and Mac. The UI of the browser has been considerably improved when compared to its older versions. Now the browser is fast and smooth. The only downfall of Internet Explorer is even today is that some advanced features are not supported whereas such advanced web features are supported on Chrome and Firefox.

3. Safari

Safari web browser is a freeware browser from the tech giant Apple Inc. Safari is the default web browser in Mac computers and in OS X and iOS Operating Systems. Safari was released in the year 2003. A version of the browser is available for Windows Operating System as well. Today, Safari is popular because of Apple products. The web browser has some awesome iOS-specific features such as printing the current web page using AirPrint and MDI-style browsing.

2. Firefox

Firefox is the second most popular web browser in the world. Firefox is a freeware from Mozilla organization that was released in the year 2002 by the name “Phoenix”. Even during its first release, Firefox proved to be a fast and secure browser by its testers and users. Mozilla Firefox is supported on OS such as Windows, Android, and iOS, Linux, Firefox OS, and OS X. As of 2015, Firefox is the second most popular web browser in the world with a usage percentage of more than 11 percent. In certain countries still, Firefox is the most popular desktop browser. Some of the intuitive features of the browser include location-aware browsing, spell checking, incremental find, Firebug for debugging and live bookmarking.

1. Google Chrome

Google Chrome is pretty recent when compared to other browsers out there. Today, Google Chrome has become the most used web browser in the world. Google Chrome was released in the year 2008 as a freeware that was written in C++. The browser is known for its performance, ease of use, syncing with Google database, security, great support for WebKit, HTML5, CSS3, and other latest web standards. Even though the most used operating system is Windows that comes pre-installed with Internet Explorer, people have moved towards other high-quality web browsers such as Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Google Chrome has a usage percentage of close to 50 percent.

Special entry: GSA

Many of the internet generations are unaware of the fact about GSA or Google Search Appliance. GSA is not a browser but a rack-mounted device from Google providing document indexing functions. The software in the device is provided by Google and the hardware is manufactured by Dell. Many internet users are using GSA to browse the internet and at a large percentage. Hence, GSA is a special entry to this list.