Privacy-focused web browsers are stuck in a rut, but why?
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Of hybrid working data rise and mismanagement continues to make headlines, you’d be forgiven for thinking that even the most unsuspecting users would be interested in securing their online privacy.
However, new data has been provided to: TechRadar Pro by digital intelligence platform SimilarWeb indicates that the growth of experienced privacy-oriented browsers Mozilla Firefox and Opera Crashes.
A rough estimate of Opera’s user acquisition rate (based on traffic to the browser installation page) suggests June was a particularly low, with a 23.1% drop in growth rate since the start of the year. Small strides have been made since then, but Opera seems to be becoming less and less attractive to new users.
Meanwhile, Firefox has fared even worse, perhaps as a result of the decision to focus on Mozilla VPN and other privacy products. In August, visits to the browser installation page were 7% lower than in January, which is market share (opens in new tab) (which was once at 30%) has fallen to just 3.35%.
The raw data shows that Firefox currently only attracts a few hundred thousand new users per month, while Opera brings in about two million. However, market leader Google Chrome is believed to be used with more than 3.1 billion (opens in new tab) people.
The Rise of the “Great Default Browser”
The publication of the figures by SimilarWeb coincided with a report (opens in new tab) published by Mozilla in late September 2022 accusing Google, Microsoft and Apple of “abusing their privileged position” to make it “difficult or impossible” for users to change the browsers set as default by the operating system.
Battle lines have already been drawn this year with European Union antitrust law targeting the stranglehold of Google, Apple and Meta in browsers, search engines and other markets. Google recently too failed to reverse a €4.34 billion antitrust fine regarding restrictions on manufacturers of Android devices designed to “consolidate the dominant position of their search engine”, according to a spokesman for the General Court of the EU.
Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are both overwhelmingly popular defaults that trade almost entirely on brand recognition and their status as default options across multiple operating systems (Chrome on Chrome OS and Android, and Edge on Windows 11). Other “great defaults” are the macOS and iOS versions of Safari.
“Defaults can be a pain for consumers who prefer to use a browser other than the default browser, but are unable or not sure how to change their default. We know from our research that some consumers are using unnecessarily cumbersome solutions to keep up with their preferences,” the Mozilla report claims.
Mozilla’s report offers some explanation as to why operating system providers are pursuing these kinds of strategies, stating that developers of “major standard” browsers can take advantage of user data.
“While consumers don’t pay to use browsers, their browsing history is valuable data for platforms with advertising companies such as Meta, Amazon, Google and Microsoft. It’s no coincidence that many of these companies need to implement robust anti-tracking technologies in their browsers or do away with third-party cookies,” Mozilla said.
However, the company also acknowledged that Big Tech’s motives go beyond data collection: the operators of the “big default” browsers earn significant money from ads served to users trapped in their own search engines.
“Google Chrome is trapped in Google Search (powered by Google ads) and Microsoft Edge is trapped in Bing search (powered by Microsoft ads). Independent browsers are the only companies that can freely think about search standards on behalf of their consumers. are also among the few companies encouraging the discovery, evaluation, adoption and innovation of alternative search and advertising experiences.”
Browser choice
While Mozilla and Opera have struggled lately, a continued demand for “alternative” web browsers is supported by separate data from SimilarWeb.
From January to August, the privacy-focused Brave Browser saw its estimated monthly downloads increase by 272%. Granted, Brave only saw 17,827 and 66,340 hits on its install page in these months, respectively, but that’s significant growth nonetheless.
These figures suggest that the continued success of “big default” browsers is likely not only a result of the suppression of alternatives, but also a function of user apathy and brand recognition.
While Big Tech pursues pure profit, privacy-focused browsers can easily argue among themselves. The growth in installs Brave has seen this year suggests that Mozilla Firefox and Opera are losing market share to newer options like Brave’s new privacy browser and DuckDuckGo (for which we don’t currently have data).
Crucially, the statistics also suggest that the pursuit of web browser privacy may be a small move, but one that could still gain traction.
Apple’s decision to let users change their default browser in iOS 14 is a welcome one in the fight to get consumers to worry about their online privacy, but the first step to total browser independence is to ditch the idea of defaults entirely — something that may never happen if Apple keeps its own “great default” on the most popular mobile operating system in the US.
As things stand, Mozilla may have made the mistake of assuming that every “big standard” browser user is a potential convert. User apathy will always play into the hands of big and powerful companies; even minus suppression tactics, “big default” browsers would still break down independent alternatives in monthly growth.
A solution such as inviting users to choose their own default browser from a list of privacy-focused alternatives, in addition to simple, reasoned arguments for doing so, could lessen that apathy. It’s just that legislation for something like this seems unthinkable to most legislators outside the European Union.
Mozilla, DuckDuckGo and 11 other companies recently lobbied Congress to introduce a data privacy bill that would tackle Big Tech’s monopolies, default browsers and unfettered data collection, but the move is unlikely to lead anywhere. , thanks to Big Tech’s lobbying resources.
In addition, the lack of regulation surrounding “revolving doors” (where politicians leave office, often for business functions, and use their connections to gain favor with lawmakers) in areas such as the UK and Australia mean that legislation for web privacy and freedom of choice for anonymous browsers can prove to be an extremely slow process, if not a completely insurmountable problem.
Would privacy-focused browsers see more even growth if users were given the option to make an informed choice between the two? The problem right now is that we may never find out.