Jul 1, 2011 15:31 GMT  ·  By

Hardly surprising, but Google Chrome has continued its steady, though recently somewhat slower, rise, gaining even more users, while Firefox and Internet Explorer's market share slips away slowly. Granted, it's going to be a while before Chrome becomes a threat to Firefox, depending on who's numbers you rely on, but the steady growth seem unstoppable.

Google Chrome was used by 13.11 percent of users in June 2011, 0.6 percent points more than in the previous month, according to data from Net Applications. That may not seem like much of a rise, but getting half of a percent point per month quickly ads up.

Considering that Chrome has been doing this since it launched, practically, without falter, and that there are no signs or foreseeable factors that would greatly diminish or reverse Chrome's rise, everyone else is just heading towards the inevitable conclusion.

Firefox was used by 21.67 percent of internet users, slightly down from the 21.71 percent in May. Firefox has been hovering around the 21 percent mark since the start of the year and around the 22 percent mark for more than a year now.

While Firefox's market share doesn't seem to be diminishing, just staying put is not going to cut it.

Internet Explorer, of course, is the big loser once again, though, as is almost always the case, the drop is small. The number of people using Internet Explorer, regardless of the version, dropped from 54.27 percent in May to just 53.68 percent in the last month.

IE had 56 percent of the market at the beginning of the year. At that time, Firefox had 22.74 percent and Google Chrome 10.70 percent.

Elsewhere in the market, Apple's Safari is also making some headway, as has been the case recently, and has reached 7.48 percent market share. Meanwhile Opera sees one of the biggest drops in recent months and hits 1.73 percent market share.