Security prompts users to flee IE for Mozilla

Recent warnings about the security of Internet Explorer and advice by US authorities to ditch it appear to have been heeded by the browser-using public – with Mozilla in particular feeling the benefit of the swap.

Downloads of the Mozilla browser have now risen to 200,000 a day, despite news that it had suffered its own security breach.

Internet analytics company WebSideStory have also been watching the battle of the browsers and found that the amount of PCs accessing the internet using IE has dropped.

Microsoft won't be shedding too many tears – its user figures have dropped by a whole one per cent. It still keeping hold of around 94 per cent of the world's browsers, down from last month's 95 per cent; however, the drop is the first of such proportions since WebSideStory began following the progress of the browser in 1999.

A Microsoft spokeswoman said that the company is "aggressively working" on sorting out the security issues with the browser and the Redmond giant doesn't feel giving up on IE "is warranted".