ChromeOS, Samsung browser were big growers at Pornhub in 2018

Adult website Pornhub has released its 2018 year in review, charting its most popular searches for the year that was. Amid all the talk of pornstars and lewd search terms, the company has also given us a look at the most popular desktop and mobile browsers, as well as the most popular operating systems.

In terms of mobile operating systems, Pornhub found that most people chose Android as their platform of choice. The Google-backed platform was used by 54 percent of mobile users, followed by iOS in second place with 44.4 percent.

Apple’s platform actually lost two percent compared to last year (with Android gaining two percent), but Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform tanked by 50 percent (capturing a flaccid 0.9 percent of the market).

Windows predictably retained its lead as the top desktop operating system, with 77.1 percent of the traffic (albeit with a three percent drop over last year). Apple’s MacOS hit second place, gaining one percent over the previous year to account for 15.6 percent of all desktop devices. But the biggest grower was Google’s ChromeOS, which climbed a massive 30 percent from 2017, although still only accounting for a relatively small 1.4 percent of total desktop traffic.

As for the most popular mobile browsers, Chrome came first, with 41.1 percent of mobile traffic. It was tight though, as Apple’s Safari browser captured 40.1 percent of the market. In fact, Pornhub noted that the two browsers were previously tied in 2017.

The biggest mover in the mobile browser arena has to be Samsung though, growing 69 percent (nice) to become the third-most popular browser at 4.9 percent. The “other” category also saw a big leap, growing 20 percent to account for 8.3 percent of mobile browser traffic. It’s unclear which browsers are responsible for this increase, although Microsoft Edge, Dolphin browser, OEM browsers, and Firefox are just a few of the apps you’d expect to find in this category.

The Android browser came last (unfortunately), accounting for just one percent of total mobile web browser traffic. This was the default browser on Android phones until Chrome’s release back in 2012, but its removal in lieu of Chrome has only seen it free-fall (dropping 50 percent this year).

Moving to desktop web browsers, Google Chrome extended its lead at the top of the chart, growing eight percent to capture 57.3 percent of all desktop visits. Second place belongs to Microsoft’s Edge browser, which grew 17 percent to wind up with 9.8 percent of the desktop traffic. This means that Microsoft’s browser finished ahead of Firefox (9.6 percent), Internet Explorer (9.4 percent), and Safari (7.9 percent).

In any event, the two biggest takeaways here might just be Apple’s performance and ChromeOS’s speedy growth. Apple’s popularity in the mobile operating system and mobile browser categories is particularly impressive, as it only accounts for 12 percent of global smartphone shipments, according to a Q3 2018 report from Counterpoint Research. Then again, it might not be quite as amazing if Apple’s mighty iPad range is included in these figures. We’ve contacted Pornhub to clarify the numbers. Update: Pornhub has confirmed to us that the iOS traffic includes both the iPhone and iPad lines. This means that the iOS gap might not be as impressive as we first thought, but we’d like to see a further breakdown between the two Apple categories.

Meanwhile, ChromeOS only accounted for 1.4 percent of desktop traffic, but Google’s platform could potentially pass Linux (pegged at two percent) as the third choice for porn viewers on desktop. In fact, Linux traffic dropped by over 20 percent, suggesting that this position change could happen in 2019.

Are there any other mobile or desktop trends you noticed? Did you spot all of my awful euphemisms? Let us know in the comments!

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