In line with the predictions we had here before, IE has not only fallen below 50% market share for the first time ever, it has now become the second most popular browser in Europe. Firefox has taken the lead and is now the most popular browser in the whole of Europe. Is that what you call as the great circle of life?
[image via firefox wallpapers]
Firefox Ahead of IE in Europe for the First Time Ever
Year 2010 has been a disastrous one as far as IE is concerned. The meteoric rise of its biggest competitors, Firefox and Google Chrome, is turning things around in a big way. For those who thought browser wars was well over years ago at the beginning of the year must have felt totally out of place by the year end. IE has long been a laggard in terms of innovation, but to everyone's amazement, IE is not even able to stick on to its remaining market share now. Things are changing and fast and browser wars are far from over.
According to Net Applications, IE market share has dropped by 2.33% to a share of 57.08%, a record low for the past decade (2001-2010). StatCounter lists IE’s share even lower, at 46.94%, with a loss of 2.53% for the month.
Firefox ended 2010 with 22.81% market share in Net Application’s charts. Since July 2010, Firefox has posted shares in the 22% range. But as far as Mozilla is concerned, the best news comes out of Europe. According to StatCounter, Firefox surpassed IE officially across Europe. Firefox now leads with 38.11%, followed by IE with 37.52%, Chrome with 14.58%, Safari with 4.62% and Opera with 4.57%. The hard fact though is, both Firefox and IE are losing market share to Chrome in Europe, but IE is dropping faster than Firefox and has surrendered its lead for the first time ever.
For now, this is an event limited to Europe, home to about 475 million Internet users, which is more than the user count of North America, South America, Central America and The Caribbean combined (470 million), according to Internet World Stats. I just hope that the whole world takes a que from Europe and turn to more secure ways of browsing soon enough. And to make things even sweeter, Firefox 4.0 is evolving pretty neat too. [via conceivablytech]