SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 5 — On September 1, 2008, Google launched its own web browser, Chrome. Ten years later, the application is used on two out of three of the world’s computers and one in every two mobile devices worldwide.

In a little less than four years, Google Chrome succeeded in unseating an institution, Internet Explorer, which for many years had no significant rivals in the sector. In 2012, Chrome became the world’s most popular web browser and since then it has consistently increased its lead over its competitors.

According to the website StatCounter, Google Chrome now accounts for 66.31per cent of computer-based browsing, far ahead of Firefox (11.39per cent), Internet Explorer (6.71per cent), Safari (5.51per cent) and Edge (4.7per cent).

On mobile devices (smartphones and tablets), Chrome also leads the field.

Let’s not forget that Chrome is installed on all machines running Android, which account for the bulk of this sector, and only a few users opt to make use of an alternative mobile browser.

With this in mind, StatCounter estimates that Chrome has a 53.32per cent share of this market worldwide, far ahead of the iPhone and iPad application Safari (22.22per cent).

Trailing far behind, there is UC Browser (10,29per cent), which is nonetheless very popular in Asia, and Samsung Internet (4.92per cent), the alternative developed by the world’s leading smartphone manufacturer.

It should also be noted that solutions like Opera and Firefox for mobiles have less than one per cent of market share in the sector.

These statistics, sourced from the website StatCounter, were last updated on September 2, 2018.

On September 3, the Google Chrome Twitter account tweeted that a birthday surprise would be coming to celebrate the occasion. — AFP-Relaxnews