When it comes to the market share of browsers on the desktop, things may appear static. There is Google Chrome at the top with an almost monopolistic lead over every other browser.

Statcounter sees Chrome at about 65 percent of the desktop market. Only three other browsers have a market share above 5 percent. Edge sits at 14 percent, Safari at 8 percent and Firefox at about 6 percent. The only other browser that Statcounter tracks is Opera, which is at about 3%

Market share has not changed all that much in the past 12 months. Google Chrome dropped less than 1 percent in that time, and the only movement saw Edge going up and Safari going down a bit.

Smaller browsers that may have a dedicated base of users are not listed. This makes it difficult to determine whether they are doing well or not.

Brave's record quarter

Brave CEO Brendan Eich publishes Brave browser and search stats on X regularly. Judging by the numbers, Brave's usage is going up. According to Eich, Brave saw the "biggest growth month on record" in May 2024.

Here are the stats for the browser:

• Monthly active users rose from 73.55M to 78.95M.
• Daily active users rose from 27.46M to 28.64M.
• Mean daily active users rose from  26.1M to 27.27M.

Eich notes that Brave Browser did particularly well in Latin America in regards to new user acquisitions. The browser managed to get to the top of the Google Play Store in some countries as well, which also helped according to Eich.

Last year, Eich reported 56.22M monthly active users and 22.13M daily active users for Brave Browser.

While usage is still relatively low when compared to the top 5 browsers on the desktop, it is clear that Brave Browser is increasing significantly.

Brave Search stats improved as well:

• Monthly search queries rose form 818.67M to 843.02M.
• 7-day mean rose from 26.31M to 28.05M.
• 28-day mean rose from 26.30 to 27.25M.

One year ago, Eich reported 617.3M monthly search queries and peaks of 19.46M and 19.8M respectively.

Closing Words

It is clear that Brave is doing something right. While it is difficult to compare the company's momentum with others, as others are not publishing usage data, it is fair to say that more and more users are taking note of Brave Browser and Search, and sticking with these products.

It is too early to say if Google's decision to migrate the extensions system of the Chrome browser to a newer version will have an impact on usage numbers. While it may persuade some users to give other browsers a try, once they realize that one or multiple of their favorite extensions stop working, it seems unlikely that this will result in a major shift away from Chrome.

What about you? Do you use Brave Browser or Search, or do you favor another browser?