Internet Explorer Below 70% Market Share

Jan 05, 2009

Internet Explorer is losing increasing numbers of users to Firefox. Google has added another blow by announcing the end of official support for IE 6.

According to statistics released by Net Applications market shares of Internet Explorer for December 2008 were 68%, a first time fall to under 70%. 21% of surfers used Firefox and Safari 8%.

Compared with November, this marks a drop of 2% for the IE browser, which a year ago had secured an 80% share of the browser market. Reasons for the drop are numerous: For one, a lot of users find it difficult to make friends with the new IE version and then there's the repeated appearance of security leaks in the MS browser. Microsoft has also lost points in the OS market. Current estimates label 89% of PC users as Windows users. In 2007, it was 92%, with Apple Mac OS X attracting for the first time 10% of users. (up from 6.5% last year). Net Application statistics put the growth of Linux users up from 0.45% to 0.85%.

With Google's announcement regarding the end of official support for IE 6, the drop in Microsoft's browser market shares is likely to continue over the next few months. Google is advising users to change to Firefox or Google Chrome. Experience shows that in similar cases, half of users migrate to Firefox without even considering the IE update.

Related content

  • Market Share: Advance for Mozilla, Setback for Microsoft

    Market watcher Net Applications has found in their recent statistics that Microsoft's representation in operating systems has fallen to below 90% of the market. Meanwhile, Mozilla's Firefox is rising to a more than 20% share in the browser market.

    more »
  • Chrome Browser Overtakes Apple Safari Per Net Applications

    If the newest statistics from Net Applications are to be believed, Google's Chrome browser has surpassed in market share Apple's KHTML engine-based Safari browser in December 2009 by a few tenths of a percentage point.

    more »
  • Little Browser Grows Up: Firefox at Five

    November 9, 2004 was when Firefox was officially born. A look back on its fifth birthday.

    more »
  • Welcome

    On August 11, Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker announced a "significant restructuring" of the Mozilla Corporation. Mozilla is best known for its flagship product, the Firefox web browser. The restructuring is said to include significant staff reductions – the second layoffs of the year.

    more »
  • Microsoft and EU Resolve Browser Argument

    Following the legal action taken by Opera, Microsoft and the EU have agreed that a separate dialogue offering a choice of alternative browsers will appear by the installation of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

    more »
comments powered by Disqus

Issue 266/2023

Buy this issue as a PDF

Digital Issue: Price $12.99
(incl. VAT)

Subscribe to our Linux newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs

News

Tag Cloud

Administration Community Desktop Events Hardware Linux Linux Pro Magazine Mobile Programming Software Ubuntu Web Development Windows free software open source