UseCounter Wiki

UseCounter can measure the usage of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript (etc) features across all channels and platforms in the wild. Feature usage is recorded per page load and is anonymously aggregated. Note, measurements are only recorded for HTTP/HTTPS pages. Usage on the new tab page, on data URLs or file URLs are not. Usages in extensions is measured on a separate histogram.

UseCounter data can be biased against scenarios where user metrics analysis is not enabled (e.g., enterprises). However, UseCounter data is essential for understanding adoption of new and existing features, web compat decision making and the blink process for breaking changes, as it reflects the real Chrome usage with a wide fraction of coverage. The results are publicly available on https://chromestatus.com/ and internally (for Google employees) on UMA dashboard and UKM dashboard with more detailed break-downs.

How to Add a UseCounter Feature

UseCounter measures feature usage via UMA histogram and UKM. To add your feature to UseCounter, simply:

Add your feature to the blink::mojom::WebDXFeature enum or to the blink::mojom::WebFeature enum;
Usage can be recorded via:
- [[MeasureAs="WebDXFeature::<enum value>"]] in the feature's IDL definition; Or
- [[MeasureAs=<WebFeature enum value>]] in the feature's IDL definition for WebFeature use counters; Or
- [[Measure]] in the feature's IDL definition for WebFeature use counters with an appropriately named use counter; Or
- blink::UseCounter::CountWebDXFeature() or blink::UseCounter::Count() for blink side features; Or
- content::ContentBrowserClient::LogWeb[DX]FeatureForCurrentPage() for browser side features.
Run [update_use_counter_feature_enum.py] to update the UMA mappings.

Example:

enum WebDXFeature {
  ...
  kMyFeature = N,
  ...
}

interface MyInterface {
  ...
  [MeasureAs="WebDXFeature::kMyFeature"] myIdlAttribute;
  ...
}

enum WebFeature {
  ...
  kMyFeature = N,
  ...
}

interface MyInterface {
  ...
  [MeasureAs=MyFeature] myIdlAttribute;
  ...
}

  MyInterface::MyBlinkSideFunction() {
    ...
    UseCounter::CountWebDXFeature(context, WebDXFeature::kMyFeature);
    ...
  }

  MyInterface::MyBlinkSideFunction() {
    ...
    UseCounter::Count(context, WebFeature::kMyFeature);
    ...
  }

  MyBrowserSideFunction() {
    ...
    GetContentClient()->browser()->LogWeb[DX]FeatureForCurrentPage(
      render_frame_host, blink::mojom::Web[DX]Feature::kMyFeature);
    ...
  }

All WebDXFeature use counters automatically get URL-keyed metrics collected for them. But WebFeature and other types of counters do not collect URL-keyed metrics by default. To opt your non-WebDXFeature feature use counter in to UKM metrics collection, add your feature to UseCounterPageLoadMetricsObserver::GetAllowedUkmFeatures() and get approval from the privacy/metrics owners.

You can quickly verify that your feature is added to UMA histograms and UKM by checking chrome://histograms/Blink.UseCounter.WebDXFeatures, chrome://histograms/Blink.UseCounter.Features and chrome://ukm in your local build.

To add a test for a use counter, there are several options:

For use counters recorded from the renderer, internal WPTs expose the internals.isUseCounted and internals.clearUseCounter functions for testing use counters recorded for a given document.
Chrome browser tests can verify that use counters were recorded by using a base::HistogramTester to check whether the "Blink.UseCounter.Features" histogram was emitted to for the bucket corresponding to the new WebFeature. If the use counter is recorded from the renderer, content::FetchHistogramsFromChildProcesses() can be used to make this use counter activity visible to the browser process.
For use counters recorded from the browser process (e.g. by calling GetContentClient()->browser()->LogWebFeatureForCurrentPage()), a content browser test can be used by creating a subclass of ContentBrowserTestContentBrowserClient that implements LogWebFeatureForCurrentPage, creating an instance of it in SetUpOnMainThread, and checking whether the instance's LogWebFeatureForCurrentPage is called. One way to implement this is to have LogWebFeatureForCurrentPage be defined as a MOCK_METHOD and then use EXPECT_CALL to ensure that the method is called as expected with the new WebFeature value. Note that the ContentBrowserTestContentBrowserClient instance should be destroyed in TearDownOnMainThread.

Analyze UseCounter Histogram Data

Public Data on https://chromestatus.com

Usage of JavaScript and HTML features is publicly available here. Usage of CSS properties is publicly available here.

The data reflects features' daily usage (count of feature hits / count of total page visits):

On all platforms: Android, Windows, Mac, ChromeOS, and Linux.
On "official" channels: stable, beta, and dev.
For the most dominant milestone.

Internal UMA tools

See (https://goto.google.com/uma-usecounter) for internal tooling.

Some metrics of interest:

"Blink.UseCounter.WebDXFeatures" for web platform features as defined in the web platform dx repository.
"Blink.UseCounter.Features" for generic Web Platform use counters (some of which are mapped to WebDXFeature use counters).
"Blink.UseCounter.CSSProperties" for CSS properties.
"Blink.UseCounter.AnimatedCSSProperties" for animated CSS properties.
"Blink.UseCounter.Extensions.Features" for HTML and JacaScript features on extensions.

UseCounter Feature in HTTP Archive

HTTP Archive crawls the top sites on the web and records everything from request and response headers. The data is available on Google BigQuery.

You can find usage and sample pages that trigger a particular UseCounter using the following script:

SELECT
  date,
  client AS platform,
  num_urls AS url_count,
  pct_urls AS urls_percent,
  sample_urls AS url
FROM `httparchive.blink_features.usage`
WHERE
  feature = 'MyFeature' AND
  date = (SELECT MAX(date) FROM `httparchive.blink_features.usage`)
ORDER BY date DESC

Or to see or filter my more data available in the HTTP Archive you can query the main httparchive.crawl.pages table like this:

SELECT DISTINCT
  client,
  page,
  rank
FROM
  `httparchive.crawl.pages`,
  UNNEST (features) As feats
WHERE
  date = '2024-11-01' AND     -- update date to latest month
  feats.feature = 'MyFeature' -- update feature
ORDER BY
  rank

UMA Usage on Fraction of Users

You may also see the fraction of users that trigger your feature at lease once a day on UMA Usage dashboard.

Analyze UseCounter UKM Data

For privacy concerns, UKM data is available for Google employees only. Please see this internal documentation for details.