“Net neutrality” laws are on the rise worldwide.
Net neutrality is the principle that every website is shown on equal terms to others. When Internet providers can restrict or favor access to certain sites or apps (for profit) it can mean less choice for users and tough times for small websites. Laws to protect the open Web are needed.
More searches happen on Google than on all other search engines combined.
Google’s lead is largest on mobile phones, with a market share of 93.76%. The landscape is more diverse on desktops, but Google is basically how most people explore the Web. It gives the company an unmatched advantage in sales of online ads that present things to people based on personal interests.
Desktop search engine market share
Mobile/tablet search engine market share
Facebook has the most active users of any social network: 1.7 billion worldwide.
Networks like Facebook, WhatsApp and WeChat serve important social functions that people value highly. But they are largely closed gardens, controlled by a handful of companies that have outsize influence over what people see and do online.
Google Chrome dominates the browser market.
On desktop computers 62% use Chrome, followed by 15% using Firefox. On mobiles, Google Chrome and Apple’s Safari are leading. The browser is the central gateway to the Web, so it matters that there is competition and that there are options built around values like choice and transparency.
Desktop browser market share
Mobile/tablet browser market share
Great article, thanks for sharing the information
Great article. However there was a paragraph which described the handover of control of the Internet’s DNS by the US government to ICANN as a mostly formality. Could this be explained more in details?
Nice. But Moz, please make your Firefox easy to compiled. I tried years but failed on preparing the build enviroment.
This is fascinating.
I wonder if for the next issue of the report whether you would be able to find data on voice ‘browsing’. I wonder if you will even be able to find out how many people have said “Alexa, find me…”. Are we entering a phase where not only will the internet be entirely closed, but our ability to know that is being closed has been taken away….
Something happened about 4 days ago whereby I can no longer access the comment section on all Youtube videos. WHY? Sharing opinions and comments about presentations gives the creator valuable information, and the viewer an opportunity to state an opinion. It doesn’t matter if one doesn’t like the opinion of another. Allowing the opportunity to express that opinion is far more important than being only a passive viewer. Data must be allowed to be examined!
That is probably about the new provisions holding sites responsible for the content of the comments—easier to just hav eno comments than to moderate. I have been following only peripherally, so not sure of details; maybe someone else can say more?
to keep in touch with family and friends must be provided for free by the cities’ at a wide band and those bussiness internet providers because they charge for commercial.
Thankyou #Mozilla.
Thankyou #Mozilla. Openness really matters.
Thanks for the knowledge
This is amazing data and analysis. Thanks
thanks mozzi!
I have been a proud user of Mozilla for a long time, but i have to tell you that i had to switch to chrome on my macbook, cause mozilla is underperforming. Please fix it, want to come back on board 🙂
Agreed, I went to Safari. No more customized Firefox with its extensions. Sad. (I will not intentionally use a Google product unless there is no choice for engaging with a group in which I am interested, and even then I will complain about it first.)
Mozilla, thanks for all the information. It is a real eye opener and very scary to know that only a few have control of the masses.
Thank you for the info Mozilla! Definitely something everyone on the net should read! Sharing it as we speak. Keep up the good work guys! We thank you 🙂
Keep up the great work Mozilla!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great information that can impact how next we interact and use the web
The real issue is the centralization of things like BGP routing and DNS. There are only 3 companies that make the devices that route 90% of the worlds traffic. At the end of the day, if one of these companies is compromised, then every internet protocol: SSL, etc. is also compromised.
Chrome is Google’s browser,
Firefox is my browser.
i,personnally…am glad we have them all..yes we can pick and choose….i am glad the netizens have a choice to begin with….without all of them..those countless electrons …would still be driving the morse code (mobile) and the ring a ling,lings(telephones)…both served well in the day…the only thing that has changed…is the amount of arbitragable yap yap yap….gab gab gab…and yada yada yada..that we, as human agent,will always continue to do…and i ,for one, am glad we have ,what we got today…looking for tmw..into an unknown of how we all communicate…with each other
There are good reasons why people are turning to these technologies (specifically, Google) over others (including yours). They’ve done a better job at virtually everything, from web standards to search engines. From a competition standpoint, they’re just doing far better. As a web developer, we recommend Google because it’s the browser that we can almost guarantee to work as we intend it. Safari and IE are just atrocious and require careful coddling to make them get 80% working (although they are getting better, fortunately). I would plant the fault for this landscape firmly in the hands of the technology creators… Read more »
Not true.Firstly,Chrome is such pain in the ass for those who have little than average knowledge in terms of WWW and computers generally.It is such idiot-friendly web browser,best suited for 4 year old kid.Problem is when you are not kid or idiot.Without tons of add-ons,its functionality is zero.And when finally install them ,and customize browser the way you want, you will feel sick in stomach-every time.One example: right click menu on selected text does not have delete option,only cut…give me a break. And there is tons of stuff in Chrome like this,it is sickening . Yes it is better for… Read more »
Very well said. Microsoft embed IE in Windows as Google promotes Chrome with androids and so on. This means that the average user will use them not from choice but cause big corporations need them to. Google use to be a good and LITE search engine years ago, now it’s just a huge corporation like Microsoft and they only mind their profits. Hope some day the average user will understand how expensive the internet has become out of the “free” products that those corporations are giving us. DuckDuckGo.com and Firefox for me!
That is sadly, a reason to change, but Safari works for me and is not part of the Google data-mining machine (though who knows what Apple is scooping up? at least they refused to put in a backdoor for the FBI [though somehow the FBI broke in anyway, imagine that!])
A very well written article with brilliant stats to support the “idea”, but what’s wrong in Google if it is a “giant” who has “adjusted” me for it’s benefit and I did not even see it coming. Basically I never deserved anything better else I would have synced with other users and by now an alternative of Google would have had existed.
fyi I use Firefox as my browser 😛
Interesting and well written article but some of this data is incorrect. The map (Equal access to online content) shows the European region as ‘Considering protections’, however the origional map at https://www.thisisnetneutrality.org/ states that Europe is providing protections and goes on to say “In October 2015, the European Union enshrined binding Net Neutrality protections in 28 countries with its Telecoms Single Market regulation”.
google doesn’t give me the sites I want . It gives me the sites it wants me to have. Firefox does a much better job. It even expounds and show me more of what i’m looking for, as what I think a computer should.
What? Firefox is not a search engine; it doesn’t “give” you any web sites per se (assuming the mechanic is that you are searching for any sites and even using a search engine). Lately, it defaults to using Yahoo as a search engine. ?
Now, its default search engine is google, for revenue purposes. The good thing about this is that most of the Firefox users are smart, well-informed people who give a shit about their online lives, and know how to use the browser to change the search engine.
I used to use Yahoo as my search engine but stopped because they had so much false news and advertising that was for scams. I wonder if it would be possible to persuade they to be more discriminating in what they put on their site
I use duckduckgo as my search engine, no targeted ads just what i asked for.
It’s pretty decent, but I use Bing because it is the second fastest/smartest search engine, and doesn’t currently hold a monopoly over the search market like google. Plus, I use it to get Bing rewards points which can be exchanged for gift cards and other things like charities and such. Bing + Firefox = Inner Peace.
I agree. The fake news media is out of control. You could just use foxnews.com for news.
Besides, fox IS the ONLY major news organization in support of Trump. All the others are against him. Can’t we just get news delivered to us truthfully? Just give us the facts not your own bias.
*This may go a little bit against the 1st amendment to the constitution of the united states, but the way powers have been abused is outrageous.*