If browser beauty is a popularity contest, then we know the answer to the question. Chrome is the fairest browser.

Sitepoint.com shared statistics from Stat Counter on browser marketplace penetration. There are shifts and changes from a year ago.

  • Chrome is still on top (and rising).
  • Internet Explorer is still second (but dropping). And IE 6 is still hanging on near the bottom, but without dropping farther.
  • Firefox is still third and Safari is still fourth.

The surprise in all this is that Safari’s share rose 17%, albeit from a very low base.

For a marketer the lesson is that the top four browsers have over 95% of the market. If your websites look fine in them, you have probably done as well as can be reasonably expected. Other browsers, if they have problems with your content, will be difficult to remedy and not worth the effort.

Here are the details:

Browser January 2013 January 2014 change
IE (all) 30.70% 22.83% -25.60%
IE11 0.00% 7.50% n/a
IE10 0.98% 4.41% +350.00%
IE9 17.54% 3.73% -78.70%
IE8 11.12% 6.61% -40.60%
IE7 0.73% 0.25% -65.80%
IE6 0.33% 0.33% +0.00%
Chrome 36.55% 43.74% +19.70%
Firefox 21.43% 18.90% -11.80%
Safari 8.27% 9.71% +17.40%
Opera 1.19% 1.26% +5.90%
Others 1.86% 3.56% +91.40%

To see the original Sitepoint story: Browser Trends February 2014: Safari Success.

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