According to StatCounter's most recent data, Chrome had 65.38 percent of the desktop browser market share in January 2022. However, the race for second position is heating up, as the margin between Apple's Safari and Microsoft's Edge has narrowed over the last year. In January 2021, Safari had 10.38 percent of the market compared to Edge’s 7.81 percent. As of this past January, Safari was sitting at 9.84 percent with Edge close behind at 9.54.

Should current trends continue, it won’t be long before Edge overtakes Safari.

Apple’s ATT update, which now prompts users of iOS apps to opt in or out of data tracking, has caused major disruption in the digital ad space, with Meta alone estimating that the change will cost it some $10 billion this year. And now, we could be set for the next stage of that shift, with Google announcing that it’s actively developing its Privacy Sandbox for Android, which is its equivalent data privacy control for Android users.

As explained by Google

“Today, we’re announcing a multi-year initiative to build the Privacy Sandbox on Android, with the goal of introducing new, more private advertising solutions. Specifically, these solutions will limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID.”

As part of this, Google’s been as open as it can in the development of its Privacy Sandbox initiatives, which most recently saw the introduction of ‘Topics’ as its key audience targeting replacement, rather than cookie-tracking.

“With Topics, your browser determines a handful of topics, like “Fitness” or “Travel & Transportation,” that represent your top interests for that week based on your browsing history. Topics are kept for only three weeks and old topics are deleted. Topics are selected entirely on your device without involving any external servers, including Google servers.”