14 DAY TRIAL // After Microsoft’s browser fiasco that took place in Europe a few years back, Redmond can’t clearly be happy with the way things are going on the Old Continent, especially because its main rivals, including here Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, are still having more users than Internet Explorer.
Microsoft was forced by the European Commission to display a browser choice screen in every Windows version sold on the continent, and it appears that this indeed affected browser usage for the European market.
Statistics provided by market researcher StatCounter indicate that Internet Explorer isn’t doing very well right now in Europe, as it’s only the third browser in the charts, far behind rivals Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
At this point, Google Chrome is the king of browsers in Europe with a market share of 45.68 percent, which means that nearly one in two desktop computers are using Google’s browser to access the web.
Mozilla’s very own Firefox is second with a share of 26.88 percent, while Internet Explorer is only third with 18.07 percent of the market. Safari and Opera are far behind with a market share that doesn’t give them too many hopes that things could change soon.
Internet Explorer, however, is on the right track and adoption is growing, but it’s hard to believe that these charts could change any time in the next couple of years in Microsoft’s favor. The company is set to deliver another major version of IE in Windows 9, but again, it’s very unlikely to make any difference in the short term.