Internet Explorer loses more ground to Firefox and Safari

Browser numbers released, IE still losing ground
10/10/2006 1:48:22 PM, by Jacqui Cheng

New browser usage statistics are out for September, and they're showing some interesting changes in browser market share. Internet Explorer, which has been the market share king for many years now, has been falling steadily since the launch of Firefox 1.0 and has now reached its lowest point in over two years at 82.10 percent. Firefox, on the other hand, has been growing steadily, reaching 12.46 percent market share. Safari holds its third place spot, but sees increasing numbers as well at 3.53 percent.

Both Firefox and Safari are seeing their highest numbers for the year, apparently at the expense of Internet Explorer. Firefox passed the 10 percent mark just under a year ago and has been enjoying continued success on Linux, Windows, and OS X. It has even become the browser of choice for many savvy users. Safari, while holding much smaller numbers than IE and Firefox, is also becoming nothing to sneeze at. A year ago, Safari had less than 2 percent of the browser market but has almost doubled its numbers since then. Netscape and Opera both carry under 1 percent of the market and Mozilla is dead last, just above "Other."

It's no surprise that Internet Explorer has been losing ground steadily over the past couple of years. There have been no significant innovations in the browser since XP SP2 was released over two years ago, and most of those were security tweaks. The downhill trend could change soon, though. (more at link)