Firefox and Chrome snatch share from IE

The amount of market share commanded by Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has dropped for the seventh consecutive month.

Internet Explorer now has 67.55 per cent of global browser market share, a drop of more than seven percentage points in a year, according to figures from web-metrics company Net Applications released on Monday. Mozilla's Firefox browser, meanwhile, has gained market share in the same timeframe, climbing more than three percentage points to 21.53 per cent.

Microsoft's browser has steadily lost ground to its competitors in the past year. Its share dropped sharply in both October and November 2008, when it lost more than one percentage point in each month.

Browser wars

Top 10 alternatives to Internet Explorer from Firefox to Chrome.

Apple's Safari browser now stands at 8.29 per cent, up from 7.13 per cent in November, when IE dipped. Safari has gained share more quickly than Firefox in that period: Mozilla's browser accounted for 20.78 per cent of browser use three months ago, and now has 21.53 per cent.

Google's Chrome browser, launched in September 2008, now has 1.12 per cent of the market, having overtaken Opera in November. Opera's share of the market now stands at 0.7 per cent.

Internet Explorer's seven percentage-point drop since February last year is a continuing trend. Microsoft lost more than nine per cent of browser market share in the preceding two years.

Most of IE's drop in the past year has been in Internet Explorer 6, which fell from 30.63 per cent last February to 19.21 per cent this January. Internet Explorer 7 has gained market share overall over the same time period, rising from 44.03 per cent to 47.32 percent.

Microsoft launched the first release candidate for Internet Explorer 8 last week. It hopes to regain lost ground by adding features such as private browsing and a cross-site scripting filter.

Which browser do you use? Post a reader comment below…

Original article: IE slips further as Firefox, Safari, Chrome gain from ZDNet UK