Chrome Slows Down in July, but Safari Sees Biggest Spike in Years

Changes in the browser market seem to be slowing down, at least according to the latest data from Net Applications. While IE lost yet another percent point in July, Firefox is holding steady and Chrome only gained a few new users.

In fact, the only interesting move was Safari's, Apple's browser got more than half of a percent point increase in market share, the biggest monthly rise for a long time.

Internet Explorer, still the most popular browser online, when adding up all versions in use, had more than half of the market, 52.71 percent. That's a 0.97 percent points drop from the previous month, nothing spectacular, but it's a decrease that repeats itself almost every month.

That said, IE still controls half of the market and no one is getting close to it any time soon. Firefox, for example, is still slowly bleeding users, going from 21.67 percent in June to 21.47 percent in July 2011.

It's not much, but it has been happening for many months now. Firefox maxed out at a little under 25 percent market share back in 2009 and has been slowly losing users since.

Google Chrome seems to finally be losing some steam. After growing heavily, relative to its user base, each month, it only managed to add 0.39 percent points to its share in July, reaching 13.49 percent.

Chrome has had slower months before and it may not be indicative of a trend, but it could mean that Google's browser could take a long while to catch up to Firefox, not to mention IE.

Finally, the only surprising move this month was Safari's. Apple browser went from 7.48 percent to 8.10 percent of the browser market in July, the biggest jump in many years.