DailyTech - Microsoft's IE Sinks While Google Chrome's Market Share Triples

Submit News

Internet Microsoft's IE Sinks While Google Chrome's Market Share Triples
Jason Mick (Blog) - May 4, 2010 9:48 AM

41 comment(s) - last by Noliving.. on May 6 at 10:05 PM

Internet Explorer continues to its five year slide downward. In five years, it has lost 30 percent market share. Google Chrome, meanwhile, has more than tripled in market share since last year.

The browser landscape continues to slowly change

Like the Romans defending the besieged fortresses of their once expanding kingdom, Microsoft's Internet Explorer grimly faces Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome browsers. In 2005, Microsoft had a huge lead controlling roughly 90 percent of the internet browser market. However, over time it saw its empire decay as it failed to keep up speed-wise, failed to provide web standards, and failed to foster an add-on community.

The latest numbers illustrate these concerns. According to market research firm Net Applications, from March 2010 to April 2010 Microsoft's Internet Explorer dropped from 60.65 to 59.95 percent of the market. That's down 7.82 percent from a year ago and represents a continuation of Microsoft's browser woes.

Firefox roughly held steady, rising 0.07 percent to reach 24.59 percent. It's up just a bit from the 23.84 percent it held last April.

Apple's Safari browser market share went from 4.65 percent in March to 4.72 percent in April.

Likewise, Opera on the PC has dropped from 2.40 percent in December to 2.30 percent in April, but is up from 2.04 percent a year ago. Opera also can brag a bit as its mobile browser has now entered the global browsing market share picture thanks to its broad adoption. A year ago it held about 0.25 percent of the total browsing market; it now holds a small, but significant 0.79 percent.

The biggest winner, by far, though, on the browsing scene is Google Chrome. Chrome jumped from 1.79 percent last April to 6.73 percent last month. These days Google appears to be the one player that has the smartphone and browsing markets most figured out.

Let's be clear; Google and Mozilla still don't hold much of the market compared to Microsoft's 60 percent chunk. However, if Microsoft continues its five year trend of sliding as much as 10 percent per year, it may only be a couple years before Google and Mozilla match it in market share.

Updated 5/4/2010 @ 11:00 am

The market share numbers for Safari were listed incorrectly in the article and have been updated.

Comments

Threshold

Username
Password
remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

Onr browser to do it all

By Chaser on 5/4/2010 10:13:29 AM , Rating: 2

Give me a browser that has good acid scores, an effective ad blocker that removes scripted advertising links; a pop up blocker; has an inline spell checker; can run Active X controls and has a weather applet.

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By Anoxanmore on 5/4/2010 10:33:49 AM , Rating: 3

I just made it with webkit, I shall dub it "The One Browser".

;)

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By Chaser on 5/4/2010 12:59:37 PM , Rating: 2

You rock! :)

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By CZroe on 5/4/2010 11:10:51 AM , Rating: 3

I also want one that treats most web forms as unsaved documents and protects it instead of just sometimes remembering what you had typed there.

How about: "Are you sure you want to navigate away from this page without saving or submitting the text you typed?"
???

Too long? How about: "Save, Do not save, Cancel"
???

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By Yawgm0th on 5/4/10, Rating: 0

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By omnicronx on 5/4/2010 11:32:45 AM , Rating: 2

Give me a browser that does what its suppose to do (i.e everything else you said ;) ), I could care less about synthetic acid scores. They include tests for unfinished specs and do not test real life scenarios. You are foolish if you don't think browser makers are coding specifically for certain cases just to pass in acid, even if the implementation is entirely incorrect and will/can never really be used in a real life scenario.

This is not the way to go about standard complience, its just going to cause fragmentation, especially between the the corporate and consumer world.

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By omnicronx on 5/4/2010 11:33:50 AM , Rating: 2

In other words, acid for browsers has turned into the PCMark and 3DMark for hardware benchmarks..

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By B3an on 5/4/2010 10:52:45 PM , Rating: 2

Maybe the 3DMark, but PCMark tests real software so it's actually useful.

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By marvdmartian on 5/4/2010 12:03:18 PM , Rating: 3

You know what still kills me, when I see it?

"This web page optimized for Internet Explorer"..... WHY???

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By bhieb on 5/4/2010 12:52:13 PM , Rating: 3

quote:
Let's be clear; Google and Mozilla still don't hold much of the market compared to Microsoft's 60 percent chunk.

Do you want to program for 60% of the market or 7%?

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By tharik on 5/4/2010 1:45:00 PM , Rating: 1

That depends if you believe the market share numbers. I think that the numbers given from http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.a... are probably more accurate.

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By B3an on 5/4/2010 10:57:09 PM , Rating: 3

Not accurate. On that very page:

quote:
"W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers."

Try reading next time. But it should be obvious that IE will still have more market share.

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By RealTheXev on 5/6/2010 1:23:54 AM , Rating: 2

I'd trust those numbers a lot more if they showed the different versions of Fire Fox, just like the different versions of IE are shown.

Microsoft really needs to EoL IE6 and get it off the market, force corporations to move up to IE7/8.

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By RealTheXev on 5/6/2010 1:26:09 AM , Rating: 2

I stand corrected, those numbers are there, I should have clicked more.

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By legendjack on 5/4/2010 12:52:32 PM , Rating: 2

Because every browser supports HTML in a seemingly different way. Extensions for CSS, etc. The disclaimer should really read "This page works with Internet Explorer". When browser developers start "strictly" conforming to HTML/CSS specs, a web author can drop the disclaimers.

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By Flunk on 5/4/2010 1:19:00 PM , Rating: 1

Except for the ActiveX you can get Chrome with adblock and a weather extension to do everything else.

ActiveX was never a standard so you're not going to find it supported on anything but IE, and even then I expect IE to drop support at some point in the future. MS doesn't really support ActiveX development anymore, they want you to use silverlight instead.

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By tharik on 5/4/2010 1:46:49 PM , Rating: 1

I agree. And ActiveX is one of the biggest security holes in IE bar none.

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By B3an on 5/4/2010 11:00:44 PM , Rating: 2

Chrome still has very poor adblocks in comparison to Adblock Plus for FF.

Cant believe a good one still does not exist. Most people are just waiting for that to make the switch to Chrome.

Parent

RE: Onr browser to do it all

By Klober on 5/4/2010 4:31:53 PM , Rating: 1

Have you tried Maxthon 3?

Parent

Chrome

By knowom on 5/4/2010 11:07:50 AM , Rating: 2

I tried Chrome recently and it seems majorly over-hyped I was not at all impressed really when compared to Mozilla. Mozilla's plug-ins are a lot better and I prefer the look and UI more as well.

Last, but not least while it's supposed to be faster I couldn't tell a difference and if anything it actually seemed slower for me.

As for IE I dropped it for Mozilla like a bad habit a few years back and never looked back.

RE: Chrome

By nyquest on 5/4/2010 1:54:03 PM , Rating: 2

I use AdThwart and it does take up white space. Depending on the web page design, certain ad space is rigid. Blocking the ad will not remove the frame. But this is the case for all ad block programs on firefox as well.

Parent

RE: Chrome

By adiposity on 5/4/2010 2:33:57 PM , Rating: 2

I think you replied in the wrong space...

Parent

RE: Chrome

By Noliving on 5/6/2010 10:05:44 PM , Rating: 2

Well that isn't really a surprise now is it? Extensions also known as plug-ins for Chrome have really only come out about 2-3 months ago. Firefox has had years of plug-in support.

Parent

Chrome Rocks!

By chunkymonster on 5/4/2010 10:59:16 AM , Rating: 1

Chrome totally spanks IE!

RE: Chrome Rocks!

By Sazar on 5/4/2010 12:25:37 PM , Rating: 2

I absolutely LOVE Chrome :D

Fast, minimal and stable. Plus I really appreciate the way extensions are handled and, I can still contribute to a websites ad-revenue without having to view ads all day long :)

I am not a leech.

Parent

RE: Chrome Rocks!

By jimbojimbo on 5/4/2010 4:02:42 PM , Rating: 2

I admit I use it at home since I'm a Gmail/GVoice/GMaps kind of guy. However I can't stand the lack of keyboard shortcuts! In IE I'd be able to hit Alt+A -> 2 (or whatever the shortcut is named) -> Enter then bam I'm there. Now in Chrome there's no shortcut to get to your bookmarks so you HAVE to use your mouse at least for one click. I saw this request in the forums but I haven't seen one come up yet. Maybe it's on the way.

Parent

RE: Chrome Rocks!

By Hudly on 5/6/2010 9:46:45 AM , Rating: 2

Ctrl+Shift+B

Bookmarks manager. You are now a winner.

Parent

Disappointed With Chrome

By mgilbert on 5/4/2010 12:02:27 PM , Rating: 5

I am disappointed with Chrome. I've tried all the ad blocking extensions, and almost all of them simply hide ads, and often fail to collapse the resulting white space. There is one that claims to actually block ads, but it misses far too many of the ads.

And there is no sidebar for bookmarks...

I tried to like Chrome. I wanted something different, for a change. But, I'm back with FireFox...

RE: Disappointed With Chrome

By Aloonatic on 5/5/2010 2:44:00 AM , Rating: 2

I think that we've reached a stage where you can use more than one browser for different types of browsing.

I tend to use chrome at home as it's pretty nippy, works well on a small notebook screen and I only visit a small number of sites really.

At work however, I use Fire Fox most of the time for the reasons that you state above, whilst using chrome for personal business, facebook, DT, e-mail (like at home) too.

Personally, I prefer using Chrome, but it does have it's problems/imperfections, but they all do. It's great to have choice though.

I'm not sure how that comes out in the figures though. I've been using 2 or 3 browsers for a while now, as you still need to keep IE around for that odd occasion where sites refuse to work unless you are using IE of course.

Parent

Safari market share is???

By snakeInTheGrass on 5/4/2010 10:14:22 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Apple's Safari browser has dipped from a peak market share of 1.13 percent in February down to 0.91 percent in April. Still, this is a bit up from the 0.78 percent it held a year ago.

Just looking at the Safari % column, it's at 4.72% which is also a new high, up from 3.53% a year ago. Chrome has grown (much?) faster from 1.79% to 6.73%, but... .91% for Safari?

RE: Safari market share is???

By Sazar on 5/5/2010 10:39:55 AM , Rating: 2

Safari appears to include all mobile devices too. iPad and iPhones have safari by default so their market-share is guaranteed to grow as their i-devices sell.

Parent

How are they making money out of it?

By Skelum on 5/4/2010 10:51:32 AM , Rating: 2

Can someone explain to me how a company such as google or Microsoft is making money out of a free browser?

Is it a doorway for a potential OS or what?

Are they making money because they advertise(by default) their own search engine?
If this is the case which search engine FireFox provides?

Is it affiliated with Google???
What if google pulls the plug to firefox? Can they legally do that?

You don't have to answer all... I just dont have any clue...

RE: How are they making money out of it?

By nafhan on 5/4/2010 11:59:55 AM , Rating: 2

Google's strategy is for you to see their ads. One of the ways they do this is by handing out free products that link to or display their web based advertising. A secondary goal with handing out free products is to increase mindshare. The thought there being the more you see Google, the more you think about Google, and therefore the more likely you are to use Google's ad supported products. Third, free ad supported products disrupt their competitors business models and take marketshare from them.

Parent

Big win for Google?

By troysavary on 5/4/2010 2:22:34 PM , Rating: 3

A jump from neligable to insignificant is important?

Is this by choice?

By legendjack on 5/4/2010 1:05:42 PM , Rating: 2

I think there is too much about who's browser is "winning". A browser should be a browser. (who should care?) It is the content that is important. Yes, some of the innovation that is incorporated into the browsers are important (I think..) aka tabs, accelerators, etc but those are on the fringe. Is the fact that Chrome is taking marketshare a sign that it is a superior product? My thought is that they are just doing a nice job installing it with some web gadget and setting the default browser. I know my 93 year old grandmother didn't make a "choice" to Chrome but I'm sure it was installed when she went and downloaded something off of the web. To her, "something changed". I would suspect this is the case for roughly 50+% of the market - younger kids, older kids (aks 93) and unsuspecting non-techies that just wanted to install this "thing" (and something changed). Is it better? Many of them don't know and don't care, as long as they can check their stocks/weather or find their YouTube video.

I like the browser wars as a consumer because they drive innovation. At the end of the day, I want them all to support HTML/CSS standards in a strict and consistent way so content output looks the same on any browser.

Web developer

By killerclick on 5/4/2010 1:09:50 PM , Rating: 2

I'm a web developer and I like what's going on with the browser market. Nowadays it's a breeze to make a site work properly in all major browsers and it'll be even easier once MSIE6 gets pushed out.
Due to my profession, I regularly use all the major browsers and the one that I really hate is Safari due to lack of search shortcuts out-of-the-box. Otherwise I'm fine with all other browsers including Internet Explorer.

Revisionist history analogy..

By cochy on 5/4/2010 1:11:43 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Like the Romans defending the besieged fortresses of their once expanding kingdom

Well if you'd like to use an analogy from the history books, might as well try to get it right.

First off the Rome was not a kingdom it was an empire. Second, which fortresses are you referring to and who besieged them?

The Visigoths managed to besiege the city of Rome itself a few time during the classical decline of the empire. The Romans didn't even defend the city in any sense. They walked in almost peacefully in that case.

Rome's decline was due to internal neglect more so than a invading army.

The Eastern empire eventually fell to the invading Ottoman empire. Those Romans did defend the city ferociously in 1453 but failed, ending the Roman empire for good.

This is not market share....

By jonmcc33 on 5/4/2010 1:46:11 PM , Rating: 2

It seems the resource for this is always "Net Applications" who is basing this upon certain websites that they monitor.

This does not account for the entire internet nor does this make any actual statement of "market share". Market share is based upon revenue. Do you really want to compare Microsoft's revenue to Mozilla or Google?

Over-reporting/Under-reporting

By wphelps on 5/4/2010 2:27:02 PM , Rating: 2

If they are getting their numbers from server logs, then the numbers are probably off a bit -- e.g. I have some Opera desktops that pretend to be Firefox and I have a copy of Firefox that pretends to be IE6,IE7, or IE8. I know many who change user-agents to make sites work that the webdev claims won't work with our outdated browser 8-, But, I don't know of anyone using IE while pretending to be using a lesser known browser.
Sent with a Webkit Mobile browser from a Nokia smartphone which I sometimes mask as a different phone -- or not a phone at all.
BTW: this site wouldn't take a submission from my Opera Mobile browser.

123

By eddieroolz on 5/5/2010 7:24:29 PM , Rating: 2

Like with many others here, I've tried all of the major browsers, and even some of the lesser-known ones.

Firefox seems to have reached a saturation point. It's not going up or down by much. I think it has to do with the bloat - it's even more bloated than IE after a few extensions. Whereas IE8 shows its window in <1s out of the box, Firefox requries significant tweaks, and even then it takes >4s to show the main window.

IE8 is my favorite and chosen browser, though its performance seems to degrade with the age of Windows install.

Chrome (or SRWare Iron, an non-Google copy) is something I don't like as much. Context menu is different from other browsers, and file download system is something I really hate.

Safari. Is trash.

Opera isn't my cup of tea either. It's like Chrome; doesn't follow standard context menu and shortcuts/settings are too different from a conventional browser.

So in the end, IE8 is still my king.

Microsoft still does not get it

By nyquest on 5/4/2010 1:39:32 PM , Rating: 1

As long as Microsoft does not open up the plug-in platform, its market share will continue to shrink. Firefox has become so bloated that it has become the #1 memory hog on my PC, even comparing with Photoshop. Every night if I leave the Firefox open, Firefox will crash by itself without performing any task.

No wonder Chrome is growing fast. It is light weight and fast. It has 90% of the features that I'd wanted. I think that once a couple of plug-ins work on Chrome, I'd switch to Chrome completely.