Browser Stats for Adventures in Automation: Whither MS Edge?

To me, the most important metric to me is the browser - platform matrix. Since I consider the QA Engineer's primary goal is to operate a web application exactly as the customer base to see everything as they see it, I want to know what browsers and platforms are being used.

Google Analytics showed me that from Saturday, October 21st to Friday, October 27th there were 1,176 user sessions. A "session", according to Google, is "the period of time a user is actively engaged in your website, app, etc".

With these user sessions, the top ten browsers used were:

Browser Stats: Top 10 Browsers

This astonished me.

I keep on thinking that maybe this week MS Edge usage will grow over time. But, no. It always seems to be Chrome & Firefox which are the top two. They seem to make up 87% of all readers of this blog.

As a software tester, I usually test in:

Chrome, though I probably won't find many bugs using that browser since that seems to be most developer's favorite browser at the companies I have worked for.
Firefox, a few bugs may creep in, since fewer developers use that.
Internet Explorer 11, 10, and 9, depending on what the Product Owner wants. Working with healthcare companies or financial firms, you will see some old, old browsers
Safari on the Mac

... I never get a chance to test on MS Edge, usually running out of time. I then get worried, checking the browser stats for the application I am testing on... and I find that it is always around two percent of the population.

What ever happened to Microsoft's edge?

Happy Testing!

-T.J. Maher
Twitter | LinkedIn | GitHub

// Sr. QA Engineer, Software Engineer in Test, Software Tester since 1996.
// Contributing Writer for TechBeacon.
// "Looking to move away from manual QA? Follow Adventures in Automation on Facebook!"