Microsoft’s push to drive users to its proprietary Edge browser seems to be working, at least according to one of its major traffic metrics.
Since the relaunch of the Edge browser in January 2020, Microsoft has made a sustained effort to promote the Edge browser. TechRadar Pro by SimilarWeb reflects this: Visits to the browser’s download page increased by more than six and a quarter million this month compared to December 2019, from 228,644 to 6,524,646.
In May 2022, there was another spike, with the number of visits increasing by almost a million compared to the previous month – possibly due to Microsoft’s announcement in April 2022 that Edge will support the use of VPNs.
Competition
Anyone who uses Windows PCs or Microsoft apps is well aware of the constant prompts to use Edge, with links to a download page accompanied by promises of faster performance with in-house services such as the Outlook email provider.
The company has certainly focused on integrating these services into the browser, however, despite these efforts, Microsoft Edge still pales in comparison to Google Chrome and Apple Safari in terms of overall usage.
While SimilarWeb has not been able to provide download metrics for these browsers – their privacy policies prevent the collection of such data – it is well known that these rivals they dominate the browser space by a huge margin (opens in a new tab).
However, Edge is gaining ground with Mozilla Firefox, once one of the most popular browsers in the world. From May to September 2022, Edge consistently outperformed Firefox in the number of visits to download pages, averaging one million more than its rival.
In fact, looking at confirmed downloads, Firefox’s popularity seems to have dropped significantly. The global monthly average of confirmed downloads between October 2019 and September 2022 was just under 60,000.
On this front, it was most comprehensively beaten by Opera (2,312,387), which has grown in popularity in recent years, perhaps thanks to its free integrated VPN, a browsing feature that continues to grow in popularity among casual users.
The anonymous Tor browser also beat Firefox with a monthly average of 1,046,939 confirmed downloads. In fact, the only browser in the data that performed worse than Firefox was Brave, which managed an average of just over 30,000 confirmed downloads over the period.
The relative success of Tor demonstrates a growing concern about online privacy as users become more aware and even suspicious of Big Tech’s often relentless collection of personal information. In fact, according to a recent survey conducted jointly by Opera and ad filtering company Eyeo, over 80% of consumers are willing to switch browsers if it means improving their privacy.
Edge-ing paves the way to success
It looks like Microsoft Edge hopes to emulate the success of Safari and Chrome by becoming the default browser for many users. The problem is that these browsers have the advantage of being tied to each company’s vast ecosystems – Microsoft doesn’t have the same control. At the moment, it is trying to make it the default browser for Windows 11 users, but there are few at the moment.
However, the company seems to continue to develop its own ecosystem. With PC sales declining and, more worryingly, declining revenues for Windows’ flagship OEM sector, it appears the operating system giant is shifting its focus in other directions. Its cloud services such as Azure and Microsoft 365, as well as its Teams video conferencing platform, are successful in the business sector, but for the casual user, Microsoft is often overshadowed again by its two biggest rivals.
Moreover, Microsoft is practically non-existent in the mobile market that has brought so much success to Apple and Google. Since mobile devices are ubiquitous all over the world, almost all of them being Android or iPhone, users are once again tied to their systems and software, including their own browsers. Microsoft’s entry into the mobile market is almost dead as it has failed to get off the ground in the slightest.
Added to this is the hassle of changing browsers, where users store all their login and password, all extensions and settings that they have adapted to their personal preferences, built over the years and integrated with other services. If you’re a Safari or Chrome user, why would you bother switching to Edge right now?
The same, of course, applies to anonymous browsers. Despite the aforementioned Opera and Eyeo survey, it seems that their optimistic results were not reflected in reality.
But if the minor trend of using anonymous browsers takes off, Edge will be hung up to dry. browser the user privacy record is no better than the mainstream rivals and the same goes for Microsoft in general Windows 11 receives criticism for invasive practices too.
So it looks like Microsoft Edge wants to take advantage of the browser’s default space by adopting the same promotional tactics as its rivals before them. If we look solely at download page visits, it looks like Edge is gaining ground. However, despite the numbers soaring, Edge adoption rates pale in comparison to the big two. If Microsoft is serious about acquiring them, it’s going to need a much more convincing reason to get users to switch than a slightly better job with Outlook and a few business apps.