For the first time in history, more European users are surfing the web with Mozilla's Firefox than Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
According to web-monitoring firm StatCounter, Internet Explorer's dominance across the continent has waned dramatically over the course of the past 12 months, with market share dropping from 44.9 per cent in January 2010 to 35.5 per cent in January 2011.
The near-10-per-cent decline has seen IE relinquish its grip as Europe's most popular browser to Firefox. Mozilla's challenger, despite having shown a 0.5 per cent decrease in popularity over the same period, now commands a leading 39.4 per cent of the market.
StatCounter chief executive Aodhan Cullen claims the change of fortune may be a direct result of the 2010 browser ballot agreement between the European Commission and Microsoft, in which the software giant agreed to give European users of Windows PCs a choice of browser - as opposed to defaulting to Internet Explorer.
IE's steady decline is likely be attributed to the EU agreement, but the increase in popularity of Google's relatively-new Chrome browser may also be a factor. In the past year, Chrome market share has risen from 5.8 per cent to 15.1 per cent - the largest increase of any single browser over the same period.
In the global stakes, Microsoft's IE continues to hold top spot at 45.1 per cent, followed by Firefox at 31.4 per cent and Chrome at 15.6 per cent.
