Firefox has overtaken Internet Explorer (IE) in the browser wars to become the No 1 browser in Europe, according to StatCounter. IE remains the favourite in Ireland, however.
StatCounter Global Stats said that in December, Firefox took 38.11pc of European market share, compared to IE’s 37.52pc share.
“This is the first time that IE has been dethroned from the No 1 spot in a major territory,” said Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “This appears to be happening because Google’s Chrome is stealing share from Internet Explorer while Firefox is mainly maintaining its existing share.”
Google Chrome in third place is gaining market share in Europe and has grown to 14.58pc compared to 5.06pc in December last year.
“We are probably seeing the impact of the agreement between European Commission competition authorities and Microsoft, to offer EU users a choice and menu of browsers from March last,” added Cullen.
Image courtesy of Mozilla.com
Ireland’s browser stakes
The StatCounter results for Ireland reveal that IE is still the favourite, followed by Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera.
In North America IE still retains a clear lead in the browser market with 48.92pc followed by Firefox (26.7pc), Chrome (12.82pc) and Safari (10.16pc).
StatCounter Global Stats is based on aggregate data collected by StatCounter on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month (4.9 billion from North America) collected from across the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.
