Andre Yoskowitz
3 Nov 2009 11:54
According to new figures from Net Applications, both Firefox and Google Chrome continue to wrestle away market share from long time leader Internet Explorer, with Chrome seeing the strongest growth.
Chrome saw over 10 percent growth to reach 3.58 percent market share, while Firefox continued its ascent moving to 24.07 percent. Apple's Safari still remains in third at 4.42 percent share, mainly due to increased Mac sales.
Net Applications says given Chrome's growth and recent beta release of Chrome 4, the browser will likely surpass Safari, and the 5 percent mark, by February of next year.
Also interestingly was the numbers behind Internet Explorer, which although still the clear market leader at 64.64 percent, is a far cry from the 93 percent share it owned in 2003. Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft's most recent update to the browser, had 18.1 percent share, moving it to within days of surpassing Internet Explorer 7 at 18.2. The eight-year-old and extremely inefficient Internet Explorer 6 remained the leader for the pack, at 23.2 percent.
IE6 remains the leader despite Microsoft's plea for users to stop using the browser, if they have the choice. Many corporate users are not so lucky.