Microsoft’s share of the browser market has dipped below 60%, according to figures from web measurement firm NetApplications.
From its highpoint of 95% market share in 2003, Internet Explorer (IE) has been steadily losing users over the last couple of years due to the emergence of rivals such as Firefox and Google Chrome and concerns of the browser’s security.
According to NetApplications Internet Explorer is still the dominant browser, accounting for 59.9% of the market, but its share is slipping. Firefox is gaining on it and now takes up about 25% of the market, followed by Chrome on 6.7% and Apple’s Safari on 4.7%. Google’s Chrome browser grew from just 1.7% this time last year and both Chrome and Firefox gained on IE during the month of April.
IE6, which is still widely used throughout the business world, has been criticised for security flaws and one particular vulnerability resulted in the German and French governments calling for a boycott of the browser.
Microsoft has also been forced to introduce a “browser ballot” throughout Europe to give users a choice of which browser to run when using Windows. The introduction was the result of a 10-year battle between Microsoft and the EU over IE being pre-installed as the default web browser on all Windows PCs.
According to the BBC, Gartner analyst Jeffrey Mann thinks that the browser ballot has yet to significantly impact Microsoft’s figures. Users are turning away from IE because there is more choice in the market, he said.
“There are more viable alternatives now. Google has been advertising and there are more people using Macs and Apple’s Safari. There is just a great awareness that there are alternatives. There were a lot of people using IE6 and some will have said that if they are going to change, they may as well look at some alternatives,” he told the BBC.
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