Are you a Chrome user? Or do you prefer Firefox? Maybe you use… Internet Explorer?
The browser you choose to use says a lot about you, and each one does all it can to get you to click its little icon on your desktop when you boot up your computer. But just which one comes out on top?
We were curious about the popularity of the different browsers, so we did a little digging. And it turns out that people who are active on social media choose different browsers than general web users.
Social Media Users Love Chrome
We analysed over a hundred thousand Fedica users to determine which browser was the favorite.
Far and away, Chrome takes the prize for best-loved browser. With 33 percent of Fedica users accessing our app through Chrome, it wins the popularity battle – for our app users at least!
Following Chrome is Safari at about 29 percent of Fedica users, then Firefox with 21 percent. Internet Explorer is in fourth place as just 9 percent of our users using it to access Fedica, followed by Android Browser at 5 percent. Opera and Opera Mini make up just 1 percent of our users each.
Everyone Else Loves IE
Take a look at how this compares to general internet users (courtesy of StatCounter):
As you can see, Internet Explorer is the favorite browser for the general internet population, with about 35 percent of users choosing it over its competitors. Chrome comes in second at 31 percent of users, followed by Firefox’s 25 percent market share and Safari, Opera and other browsers each getting between 1 and 7 percent of users.
Fedica is a social media tool, and all of our users have a Twitter account. There are probably other factors involved as well, but it looks like social media users have different browser preferences than general internet users.
To Recap
The top three browsers among Fedica users:
- Chrome
- Safari
- Firefox
The top three browsers among internet users:
- Internet Explorer
- Chrome
- Firefox
It looks like Chrome is the most consistently used browser, grabbing a market share of 33 percent of Fedica users and 31 percent of internet users in general.
And the browser that sees the most fluctuation in use between social media users and general internet users is Internet Explorer. It falls from over one third of all users when looking at StatCounter’s results to only 9 percent of Fedica users.
Firefox holds third place among both groups, being 21 percent of Fedica users and 25 percent of general internet users browser of choice.
What About Mobile?
We also found some differences between social media users and everyday internet users when it comes to mobile use.
According to StatCounter, mobile accounts for only a small percentage of all internet users: just about 10 percent.
However over one quarter (27 percent) of Fedica users access the app on mobile. That’s an increase of 170 percent, and shows that social media users really love their smartphones!
Mobile users will, of course, usually choose different browsers than their stationary counterparts. Being on a smartphone, users usually have a browser pre-installed depending on their OS, which many users will not bother to change.
Why do you think browser preferences appear to be different between social media users and internet users in general? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, or tweet to us at @fedicaHQ!