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Browser Market Shares 1993-2019 Animated History

by Alex Yumashev · Updated May 8 2019

I've dug some data from various sources and created this simple animated chart for browser market shares from 1993 to 2019.

Some notes:

Data Accuracy

The publicly available data I had to dig through - varies. Some numbers differ by upto +/- 10% so I took the liberty to take a median/average when I spotted inconsistencies.

That's because most of the sources measure market-shares by simply tracking their audiences, and audiences differ. Also, some stats include both mobile and desktop browser engines, while other include desktop only. Which brings up to the second point:

The Rise of Mobile and Other Key Events

First iPhone came out in 2007. First version of Chrome was released in the end of 2008. First commercial release of Android came out in 2008 too (the first phones were yet to follow).

And you can see there's a "pause" in 2007. Shares barely move. I even thought I had made a mistake there for a moment, but no, the data was accurate. The 2007 calm is then followed by fast changes over the next couple of years.

The rise of mobile resulted in a leap for Safari, contributed to Chrome popularity and even kinda resurrected Opera from the dead.

What does surprise me though, is the lack of any changes in 2017-18-19... The world has been moving fast, with AI/ML, electric cars, IoT, privacy scandals and voices raised over Google's domination again and again, but turns out that's just the bubble I live in.