6 ms·

> Are there statistics on the browser usage on HN? Just for a good laugh. Here is a screenshot of my Cloudfront dashboard showing the breakdown of user agents

> Are there statistics on the browser usage on HN? Just for a good laugh. Here is a screenshot of my Cloudfront dashboard showing the breakdown of user agents into particular browsers when an article of mine reached the top of HN about two months ago: https://imgur.com/a/gQ2mxOM https://imgur.com/a/gQ2mxOM Looking at the number of distinct IP addresses in Athena for that day, about 20,200 of those hits were distinct viewers: https://imgur.com/a/aEtU7AB https://imgur.com/a/aEtU7AB This is not definitive, but it's something I guess. Here are a few observations based on that data: 1. On the desktop, it looks like Chrome and Firefox are at about parity for HN users. I kind of doubt this actually, and think it's more likely that Chrome still beats Firefox by a sizable margin. But even if this is off, it looks like HN users actually do use Firefox significantly more than the general population, which means the evangelization here isn't just a vocal minority among HN users. 2. On desktop Safari is a distant third. It would appear more people browse HN in any mobile category than browse HN on desktop using Safari. 3. On mobile, mobile Safari dominates. Then mobile Chrome has about half as many users as mobile Safari, and mobile Firefox again half as many as mobile Chrome. EDIT: I pulled an Athena report of the referrer breakdown as well, if anyone's curious: https://imgur.com/a/1dworVj https://imgur.com/a/1dworVj

noahmasur 6y ago
I wonder if mobile Safari domination is partly because iOS apps themselves use "Safari" when displaying webpages. If I tap an article using the Octal HN app, it opens in an internal "browser view" that is just an instance of Safari.
- fractionalhare 6y ago
  That's a really good point. Though on the other hand, any of the browsers on iOS are actually just the mobile Safari engine under the hood anyway, regardless of what the user agent says. To be rigorous, these statistics would need further decomposition.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  Is the Android webview using WebKit or blink now? I wonder how that would show up.
  - donatzsky 6y ago
    That depends on the app, and if Firefox is installed and is the default browser.
- NorwegianDude 6y ago
  Even Chrome on iOS uses safari(webkit). There is no competition allowed on iOS, and that really sucks considering how terrible Safari is.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    (as a web developer) As a user Safari is fantastic and basically the whole reason I even own an iPhone. It’s just stupidly faster than Chrome on any Android flagship. A world where there’s “choice” of browsers on every platform in practice just cements Chrome as the web because if you didn’t have to develop for Safari nobody would. On every other platform it’s “have bug-for-bug compatibility with Chrome or die.”
    - bsanr2 6y ago
      I'm not sure where people get this idea. Chrome on my old Note 8 is as fast as Safari on my newer iPad, and doesn't need to reload tabs as I switch between them nearly as often. On top of that, the Safari interface is completely unintuitive ("I have to hold which button to access that? I can't just tap it?"). I wouldn't even bother owning an iOS device if it weren't for the third-party app selection (specifically for art production). Which is the most infuriating part: devs could do all of this stuff on Android, they just refuse to.
      - Miraste 6y ago
        >devs could do all of this stuff on Android, they just refuse to. That's not fair. There are good reasons Android doesn't have art production apps. The biggest is that Android users don't pay for apps like that and devs like eating, but iOS has several other advantages like the Pencil, the better graphics APIs, the better graphics performance, etc.
        bsanr2 6y ago
        It is wholly fair. Developers have treated Android users like second-class citizens from Day 1. Android apps come out months after their iOS counterparts, with hobbled features that never reach parity. Customers have responded with second-class compensation (favoring advertising). Additionally, what you rationalize as "better" is better thought of as a result of expertise lock-in, as developers with more (exclusive?) experience developing for iOS favor that platform. Android is fundamentally more open as a platform, and Android apps would benefit if companies actually bothered to hire and incentivize Android developers as a priority. An especially damning example: the rapid development of ARKit-based technologies after YEARS of Google making its Project Tango resources available. ARCore still lags behind ARKit even though its underlying architecture had BEEN there for developers to explore and iterate on. They simply wrote off the very concept of SLAM-based interaction until Apple said, "Let's do this." It's embarrassing.
ma2rten 6y ago
HN is not a typical user base.
- fractionalhare 6y ago
  Of course it isn't, but we're talking specifically about HN users...these statistics are in response to someone asking about browser share of HN readers, not browser share of the general population.
toastal 6y ago
Those are the highest figures I've seen for Firefox Android anywhere. I'm shocked, but proud.
- jdrbc 6y ago
  it's the easiest way to get adblock on mobile!
- neop1x 6y ago
  My FF mobile addons: uBlock Origin, I don't care about cookies, ViolentMonkey (it can sync scripts), ClearURLs (with etag and generic filtering disabled!) and Cookiebro. I really like addons and that's why I don't use chrome on mobile. Surprisingly I also started using Firefox Focus. At first it looked like nonsense to me, no addons. But then I found out it sometimes makes sense to start from scratch, focus on some topic and delete all tabs with one tap when done. And if I find what I searched for or want to read it later, I share the page to Saved messages on my Telegram. This workflow works surprisingly well for me.

noahmasur 6y ago

I wonder if mobile Safari domination is partly because iOS apps themselves use "Safari" when displaying webpages. If I tap an article using the Octal HN app, it opens in an internal "browser view" that is just an instance of Safari.

fractionalhare 6y ago
That's a really good point. Though on the other hand, any of the browsers on iOS are actually just the mobile Safari engine under the hood anyway, regardless of what the user agent says. To be rigorous, these statistics would need further decomposition.
CameronNemo 6y ago
Is the Android webview using WebKit or blink now? I wonder how that would show up.
- donatzsky 6y ago
  That depends on the app, and if Firefox is installed and is the default browser.
NorwegianDude 6y ago
Even Chrome on iOS uses safari(webkit). There is no competition allowed on iOS, and that really sucks considering how terrible Safari is.
- Spivak 6y ago
  (as a web developer) As a user Safari is fantastic and basically the whole reason I even own an iPhone. It’s just stupidly faster than Chrome on any Android flagship. A world where there’s “choice” of browsers on every platform in practice just cements Chrome as the web because if you didn’t have to develop for Safari nobody would. On every other platform it’s “have bug-for-bug compatibility with Chrome or die.”
  - bsanr2 6y ago
    I'm not sure where people get this idea. Chrome on my old Note 8 is as fast as Safari on my newer iPad, and doesn't need to reload tabs as I switch between them nearly as often. On top of that, the Safari interface is completely unintuitive ("I have to hold which button to access that? I can't just tap it?"). I wouldn't even bother owning an iOS device if it weren't for the third-party app selection (specifically for art production). Which is the most infuriating part: devs could do all of this stuff on Android, they just refuse to.
    - Miraste 6y ago
      >devs could do all of this stuff on Android, they just refuse to. That's not fair. There are good reasons Android doesn't have art production apps. The biggest is that Android users don't pay for apps like that and devs like eating, but iOS has several other advantages like the Pencil, the better graphics APIs, the better graphics performance, etc.
      - bsanr2 6y ago
        It is wholly fair. Developers have treated Android users like second-class citizens from Day 1. Android apps come out months after their iOS counterparts, with hobbled features that never reach parity. Customers have responded with second-class compensation (favoring advertising). Additionally, what you rationalize as "better" is better thought of as a result of expertise lock-in, as developers with more (exclusive?) experience developing for iOS favor that platform. Android is fundamentally more open as a platform, and Android apps would benefit if companies actually bothered to hire and incentivize Android developers as a priority. An especially damning example: the rapid development of ARKit-based technologies after YEARS of Google making its Project Tango resources available. ARCore still lags behind ARKit even though its underlying architecture had BEEN there for developers to explore and iterate on. They simply wrote off the very concept of SLAM-based interaction until Apple said, "Let's do this." It's embarrassing.

ma2rten 6y ago

HN is not a typical user base.

fractionalhare 6y ago
Of course it isn't, but we're talking specifically about HN users...these statistics are in response to someone asking about browser share of HN readers, not browser share of the general population.

toastal 6y ago

Those are the highest figures I've seen for Firefox Android anywhere. I'm shocked, but proud.

jdrbc 6y ago
it's the easiest way to get adblock on mobile!
neop1x 6y ago
My FF mobile addons: uBlock Origin, I don't care about cookies, ViolentMonkey (it can sync scripts), ClearURLs (with etag and generic filtering disabled!) and Cookiebro. I really like addons and that's why I don't use chrome on mobile. Surprisingly I also started using Firefox Focus. At first it looked like nonsense to me, no addons. But then I found out it sometimes makes sense to start from scratch, focus on some topic and delete all tabs with one tap when done. And if I find what I searched for or want to read it later, I share the page to Saved messages on my Telegram. This workflow works surprisingly well for me.