The month of December saw Microsoft unable to slow down the downfall of its web browser, the Internet Explorer. Chrome, Firefox and Safari posted substantial gains while at least 1.5 points were surrendered by IE, according to Net Applications.
Internet Explorer lost at least 8 points in the last year and is at its lowest since the year 1999. Updated version of the browser market positions were released by Net Applications which showed the IE losing its hold rapidly. The portion of the market surrendered by the Internet Explorer was effortlessly picked up by its rivals.
While half a point was gained by Firefox, which ended at 21.34%, Chrome gained 1.04% and Safari gained 7.93%. Incidentally, Google has crossed the 1% mark for the first time. Though Opera was stable at 0.71%, it was not able to take advantage of the falling IE market, being unable to effectively attract its users.
Last year saw Firefox gaining 4.5 points and Safari 2.4 points. IE however lost 7.9 points. The month of September saw the release of the Chrome browser. There was an addition of 0.7 points user share for Opera which has a slight edge over the fast declining position of Netscape at 0.57%.
Vulnerability of Microsoft’s browser in the Corporate IE6 user’s sector is one of the main reasons for the browser’s declining share in the market. This is evident with the IE7 remaining stable and the IE8 Beta versions 1 and 2 have even shown a growth of 0.96% since they were released in March and August 2008.