GOV.UK browser statistics (2024 onwards)

Collated session data from the GOV.UK website, for people who find that kind of thing interesting/informative. Try not take this as gospel, there are a lot of caveats to consider.

Browsers

Browsers sorted by the recent month's data. Percentage data is as a proportion of all sessions for that month.

Browsers by device type

Percentage data is as a proportion of all sessions for that month.

Mobile browsers

Percentage data is as a proportion of all mobile device sessions for that month.

Tablet browsers

Percentage data is as a proportion of all tablet device sessions for that month.

Desktop browsers

Percentage data is as a proportion of all desktop and laptop device sessions for that month.

Smart TV and games console browsers

Percentage data is as a proportion of all smart TV and game console sessions for that month.

Operating systems

Percentage data is as a proportion of all sessions for that month.

Most used browser & OS combinations

The 20 most popular browser/OS combinations as of the most recent month's data. Percentage data is derived from the total sessions of the top 30 combinations for the given month, which accounts for approximately 99.98% of all sessions.

Caveats to this data

1. Data is sourced from the main GOV.UK website, hosted at www.gov.uk. Parts of the site under different domains, such as blogs and services, collect analytics seperately and are not included in this data.
2. This data only includes users with JavaScript available and who explicitly opted into analytics tracking.
3. Mobile device usage is likely to appear inflated compared to other device types, as the analytics consent banner on GOV.UK is more visually intrusive on smaller screens.
4. Browsers that automatically restrict or block analytics tracking will, by their nature, be underrepresented in data or not appear at all.
5. Although GOV.UK draws many international visitors, it’s a UK-centric website and the vast majority of sessions originate from within the UK. The data should not be considered representative of browser usage in other countries.
6. Month-by-month differences can be affected by public holidays and seasonal trends, and may not represent wider trends. For example, there are notably fewer sessions from Windows devices in December and the summer months, when more people are off work.
7. This data is provided 'as is' without support or guarantees of accuracy. Percentages and monthly change values may not add up as expected due to rounding.

Questions and answers

How has this data been manipulated?

For the most part, it hasn't. The majority of it is identical to what is exported from Google Analytics, including all of the bits that don't quite add up for one reason or another.

Things I have changed include:

• merging browsers that appear under multiple names (e.g. if a browser rebranded)
• removing one-off sessions with nonsense/spammy user agent names
• correcting one-off errors with device categorisation

What changes to data collection have taken place?

GOV.UK will occassionally make changes to their analytics code which can appear as significant changes in trends over a very short period of time. Browser and OS data is usually unaffected by these changes, but they sometimes are. This has so far only happened once.

• In August 2024, analytics code stopped being ran in browsers that don't fully support JavaScript modules. This includes many older browser versions, notably versions of Safari 10 and below and all versions of Internet Explorer. Browser support for JS modules can be seen on Can I Use.

What's the difference between Safari and Safari WebView?

Safari sessions took place within the Safari web browser. Safari WebView took place within a 'webview'—a web browser window embedded inside of an iOS or iPadOS app.

WebViews tend to provide a more limited user experience compared to the full browser, such as only having buttons to navigate backwards and forwards and to refresh the page and not allowing new tabs. They typically lack a URL bar and most other features present in the full browser.

What's the difference between the Android operating system, Android Browser, Android WebView, and Android runtime browser?

Android the operating system is... a mobile operating system, made by Google but used by various device manufacturers. It's common for manufacturers to modify the user interface and features of their version of Android to make them unique.

Android Browser is the default browser that ships with unmodified ("stock") versions of Android. It's a very basic browser, and most manufacturers replace it with their own, as Google do with Chrome and Samsung do with Samsung Internet.

Android WebView is Android's version of the Safari WebView. It uses Chromium as the underlying rendering engine but is updated separately from both Android Browser and the bundled browser.

Android runtime is a "managed runtime" (whatever that is) that some Android apps use. I have no idea why it shows up in browser analytics data. Perhaps these are browsers on embedded systems or particularly weirdly implemented webviews? I don't know.

Thanks Google.