Browser Trends December 2014: Safari Survival?

Originally published at: http://www.sitepoint.com/browser-trends-december-2014-safari-survival/

In last month’s browser trends report, Internet Explorer slipped below 20% for the first time since the mid 1990s. Let’s see if there’s any drama in the latest figures from StatCounter

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I was wondering how the introduction of Firefox’s Developer Edition might affect stats. Perhaps it’s too early, or perhaps it won’t be enough to help boost Firefox at all.

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… Apple no longer enjoys a technical advantage …

I’m actually more of an Android fan if anything, but I couldn’t help come across these recently:

I’d say JavaScript execution is still superior in Safari, and even in WebKit sans Nitro (e.g. iOS WebViews). Chrome certainly has richer JavaScript features, but there more than a few places where Chrome’s performance falls behind.

I try to regularly benchmark these browsers, and my results tend to award the performance crown to Safari more often than to Chrome:

I’m not convinced it’ll have much of an effect. I installed it and used it for a while but, since Firefox is my default browser, it didn’t offer anything I couldn’t use in the standard browser.

In addition, you will either use Fx or FDE at one time - it’s not as though it would double your own usage.

All the top browsers are good. No single application beats the others in every benchmark. In this particular case, there could be any number of reasons why Android Chrome falls behind Safari, Firefox, IE, and desktop Chrome. It may not be as simple as JS performance alone.

But it doesn’t matter how good Safari (desktop) is - it’s losing market share and has become impossible to test without a Mac. If you can’t test Safari, there’s no guarantee your app will work. Users will inevitably switch browsers because Safari is less reliable. Which means fewer developers test it … and usage spirals down further.

Yes, that makes sense. At first I wondered if FDE would lure me away from Chrome, but meh … it didn’t really do a lot for me, sadly.

I hope Safari desktop will survive, only because it’s handy for debugging iPhone and iPad. :slight_smile: Otherwise I never use it.

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