Apple's Safari hits 1 billion users, becomes second most used browser worldwide

Apple's default internet browser, Safari, has now crossed one billion users, which accounts for nearly 20% of the people on the internet, according to a new survey conducted by Atlas VPN. The browser, which is an integral part of Apple's privacy offerings, is now the second most used web browser in the world. 

Despite its new popularity, however, Safari is still way behind Google Chrome, which continues to enjoy the number one position, with 3.3 billion worldwide users and takes up 64% of the total browser market.

Atlas VPN believes the popularity of the browsers is due to wide availability and security features, however, for Chrome, users were attracted by its “application driven design”. Google’s ecosystem of YouTube, Docs, Maps, and Drive all make Chrome the number one choice for a large number of users, it said.

Safari’s success is attributed to its availability on iPhones and Macs. Its security features including its Intelligent Track Prevention feature, stops bad actors from tracking people across all websites.

In the last one year, Apple introduced several new privacy features to Safari. For this year’s WWDC, it’s likely that Apple will focus even more on the privacy features of its own browser.  

Of the other contenders, Microsoft Edge, as per the report is now the third most popular browser with over 212 million users. “Since the release of Windows 11, Microsoft set it as the default browser on all devices and made it difficult for users to change to their preferred option. Therefore, Edge received a significant increase in its user base,” said the report.

Mozilla Firefox is at number four with 179 million users and the browser’s private browsing mode includes security against tracking, malware, phishing, and pop-up blocking. Samsung Internet is the fifth most popular browser with 149 million users whereas the Opera browser is used by 108 million users.