Chrome seems to be the most popular web browser, followed
by Apple's Safari and the once-dominant IE to rank third.
According to the federal government's Digital Analytics Program (DAP), Chrome dominates US web browser use. Google's browser doesn't have the 90-plus percent market margins that IE once did with 44.5 percent, nothing else comes close. IE lags far behind, with only 15.5 percent market share.
In fact, IE is in third place. Apple Safari has second place, with 25.4 percent.
However, DAP's summary numbers don't distinguish between desktop and mobile-based browsers, so Apple's Safari got a high rank despite the low percentage of the desktop users running macOS-based desktops.
Fifty-nine percent of visitors to government websites used a desktop, while 35.1 percent used a smartphone and 5.9 percent visited with a tablet, according to DAP.
Firefox, once the solid No. 2, has tumbled to fourth place, with 7.4 percent. Microsoft's Windows 10-specific browser, Edge, is used by only 3.5 percent of end-users.
Opera has been dropped into the 2.2 percent that goes to all other browsers combined.
DAP's results come from 2.17 billion visits over the past 90 days to more than 400 US executive branch government domains. It includes about 5,000 total websites. DAP uses the raw data from a Google Analytics account. DAP has open-sourced the code, which displays the data on the web and its data-collection code.
According to StatCounter, Chrome is No. 1, with 58.4 percent of the market as of December 2016. By its count, Firefox is eating Chrome's dust, with 13.45 percent. Safari is in third place, with 10.54 percent, followed by IE, with 8.92 percent, and then Edge, with 3.09 percent. Opera, again, has fallen off the chart.
NetMarketShare agrees that Chrome is No. 1. In its desktop-only analysis, Chrome has over 50 percent. By its count, IE, while far behind, is in second place, with 20.62 percent. Firefox is in third, with 7.49 percent. Safari, without its iPhone and iPad support, drops to fourth place, with 2.8 percent. Opera finally pops up, with 0.91 percent.