Steve Jobs may have wanted the iPad to be free of porn, but that certainly hasn’t stopped users turning to the device’s Safari browser view porn sites.



Safari on the iPhone and iPad is used more than any other mobile browser, according to new data from Pornhub, one of the biggest free pornography sites, with 38 million users a day.

“Over the past year, Pornhub has seen a major shift in the types of traffic coming to our site,” said a company spokesperson in a blog post. “Of the 38 million people who visit Pornhub each day, over half are now using mobile devices like tablets and smartphones.”

iPad claims the lion's share

Apple’s iPad was the most used tablet by quite some margin, with Safari claiming 73% of the porn site’s tablet visitors, with Google’s Chrome, which is available on the iPad and Android tablets, a distant second used by 13.6% of visitors.

The Android browser built into Google’s mobile software came third with 7.8% of tablet browsers, leading Amazon’s Kindle Fire browser Silk with 4.8% and leaving BlackBerry’s Playbook in last with 0.69%.

The data is not quite as surprising as it sounds, despite the iPad’s Safari browser dominating Pornhub’s tablet browsing. Apple’s iPad maintains a dominant share of overall tablet users in the majority of developed markets, including the US where it had a 54.5% share and the UK where it had 59% share of tablet users in 2013, according to data from research firm eMarketer.

iPhone users also avid viewers

Apple’s iPhone users are also avid viewers of Pornhub. The smartphone version of Safari claims a 38.2% share of all the porn site smartphone users globally, beating the Android browser, which holds a 29.4% share. Google’s Chrome mobile browser, which is available on both Android and the iPhone, holds an 18% share and Window Phone’s Internet Explorer comes in fourth with 2.4% of visits.

Opera’s Mini browser, which is available on various smartphones including BlackBerrys was in last place with 2.3% of visitors.

Apple’s iPhone held a 40% share of smartphone users in the US in 2013, while int eh UK Apple’s numbers are slightly lower with a 29% share in 2013, according to eMarketer.

'More than half of Internet Explorer users using latest version 11'

Desktop browsers were still used by a significant number of Pornhub’s purveyors, with Chrome leading the charge at 44.4%, with Internet Explorer coming second with a 23.2% share, leading Firefox with 20.1%, Safari with 7% and Opera with 2.6%.

The porn site’s desktop browser statistics mirror the current browser marketshares, according to data from research firm StatCounter, which places Chrome in the top spot with a 45.22% of global browsers, leading Internet Explorer at 21.43% and Firefox at 18.72% in April.

Pornhub also analysed the distribution of Internet Explorer versions, which showed Microsoft’s attempts to get users to upgrade to the latest and safest version 11 is gaining traction with porn viewers, although discontinued versions including IE5, which was released 15 years ago, are still in active use.

“More than half of Internet Explorer users coming to Pornhub are using the latest version 11. Version 10 was released in 2012 and brings 17.5% of the traffic. Version 9 (2011) and Version 8 (2009) each bring just over 14% of visitors. IE 7 (2005) and IE 6 (2001) still account for 2.5% of our traffic, and unbelievably we do still have daily visitors from IE 5 looking for a porn fix,” said the report.

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