IE Drops Like a Rock, Eroded by Chrome and Firefox

Internet Explorer’s dominance on the browser market has been weakening constantly since Mozilla’s open source browser started getting traction with users. And with the advent of Google Chrome, IE’s share loss only became steeper. Statistics offered by Janco Associates reveal that in February 2010, Internet Explorer has dropped under 65%. Over the past four years, the release of Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 did nothing to halt IE’s crumbling market share.

Janco notes that from February 2009 to February 2010, IE dropped 6.21%, from 70.99% to 64.78%. “The major findings are that in the last 12 months Microsoft's browser market share has continued to erode - Microsoft lost over 6% in the last 12 months; Firefox's market share is unchanged for the last 12 months; Google Desktop and Chrome now have just under 6%; and Netscape is no more,” reads an excerpt from the Browser and Operating System Market Share White Paper.

What is extremely interesting is that even with Windows 7 jumping at over 12% of the operating system market in just four months after release, IE’s share continues to drop. Windows 7, of course, comes with Internet Explorer 8 as the default browser. This can only mean that customers of Windows 7 are quick to turn to alternative browsers rather than stick with IE8.

Mozilla’s Firefox is runner up on the browser market with a share of 17.38%; although Janco gives another 1.73% share to Mozilla on top of that of Firefox. Another open source browser has taken the third position, this time from Google, Janco claiming that Chrome is up to 5.78%. Safari is next with 1.39%, followed by Opera with just 0.41%.

Microsoft’s “browser market share has fallen to level that they back in 1998 with no end in sight,” said CEO of Janco Associates, Victor Janulaitis. “The positive glow on Google's Chrome was dulled in with the identification of some defects in the way it handles XML pages. But the real story is the continued erosion of Microsoft's market.”

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) RTW is available for download here (for 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008).

Firefox 3.6 Final for Windows is available for download here.

Google Chrome 4.0 Stable is available for download here.

The latest release of Opera 10 is available for download here.