While IE is still the reigning champion, holding around 60 percent of the browser market, it’s a far cry from the 75 percent that the browser claimed almost two years ago. Since then, Microsoft has seen IE’s slice of the browser pie shrink almost every month. In fact, this is the first time that IE’s share has increased since June last year. Admittedly the current increase is only 0.57 percent, but considering the millions of users across the world, that could represent a significant number of people switching browser.
The boost seems to have come at the expense of Firefox, which has struggled to grow its market share this year, even as Chrome and Safari continued to rally. While it maintains almost a quarter of the browser market, Firefox saw a drop of a little over half a percent for June 2010. While one month’s worth of data doesn’t make a trend, and considering all statistics should be taken with a pinch of salt, Microsoft will surely be hoping that this increase halts IE’s fall in popularity.
Some positive momentum behind IE can only help matters in the run up to the launch of Internet Explorer 9, which is expected to be released late this year or in early 2011. All reports suggest that Microsoft is trying to counter much of the bad press associated with earlier versions of Internet Explorer by ensuring that IE9 is compliant with all modern standards while being quick, secure and stable.
It will be interesting to see how this develops and whether or not Microsoft will manage to hold steady for more than a month or two. We’ll be sure to make an update if there is any more movement in the browser wars.
