The war of the browsers continues as the latest internet usage statistics from Netmarketshare shows that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer continues to take a dip while Google and Mozilla edge in and take a bigger chunk of the market.
This time last year – in May 2009 – Internet Explorer captured 68.1pc of the global browser market. Although it still remains the dominant browser, this figure has slipped significantly to 59.95pc only 12 months later whilst Chrome is fast growing.
In the past year, Chrome has gone from 2.18pc of the browser market to a healthy 6.73pc for a relative newcomer and Mozilla’s open source Firefox now takes 24.59pc in comparison to its 22.75pc share last May.
Opera has also experienced some growth, hitting 2.3pc of the global browser market share in comparison to its 2.06pc from last May, and this is in no doubt due in part to the recent European Commission ruling instigated by Opera that required Microsoft to bring in Screen Choice, which gave Windows users the option of choosing from a selection of internet browsers rather than by default using IE.
Finally, Opera Mini for mobile handsets is doing quite well in the overall browser stakes, capturing 0.79pc of the market in May 2010 in comparison to its 0.25pc last year.
By Marie Boran
