14 DAY TRIAL // It's love all around, and noting but love for the three major competitors in the browser race for the Windows platform, as Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2.0 and Safari 3 all enjoyed an increase in market share the past month, according to statistics from Market Share by Net Applications. However, this gain in market share is not without its victims. And in this context, each of the three browsers is eating away not at its rivals, but at its predecessors. The positions of IE, Firefox and Safari on the browser market are a clear indication of stagnation. An indication that there is little shift among the users of the rival browsers.
Internet Explorer 6 is still dominant on the browser market, but aging and already turned obsolete, despite being a representative of the most influential technology product of the past 25 years according to the Computing Technology Industry Association. In July, IE6 accounted for a share of just 45.24%, having dropped from 46.21% in June.
The eroded market share moved to Internet Explorer 7 as the browser grew from 32.02% to no less than 33.15%. The increase in IE7 adoption comes as Microsoft is experiencing a strong uptake of the Windows Vista operating system. The 60 million Vista copies shipped in the first six months equal the same number of IE7 instances, but of course, the usage of the operating system does not directly determine that of Internet Explorer.
Having cut the lifeline for Firefox 1.5, Mozilla witnessed version 2.0 of its open source browser explode. While Firefox 1.5 is approaching its end, owning just 1.43% of the browser market in July, and with no support from Mozilla, Firefox 2.0 jumped from 11.07% in June to 12.38% the past month. Safari 3.0 is also on the increase having the benefit of both the Windows and Mac platforms. Apple's browser, scheduled to be integrated into the final version of Leopard, is now at 0.41% and closing in on Opera with 0.88%.
