Apr 1, 2011 08:28 GMT  ·  By

It has been a month of unprecedented browser releases. Internet Explorer 9, Chrome 10 and Firefox 4.0 all hit the web in March 2011, giving users a veritable cornucopia when it comes down to browser choices. The final milestones and subsequent downloads and updates produced inevitable measuring contests, although the real winners are end users, and they’re not exactly genuinely impacted by details such the volume of downloads.

According to the latest statistics from Net Applications, over 3.6% of all Windows 7 users made the jump to IE9 RTW and were actually running the browser by the end of March 2011.

While in terms of the sheer number of downloads Firefox 4.0 has IE9 beat, it’s still the latest version of IE that’s enjoying a larger usage share on Windows 7, although things are not the same on older Windows platforms, especially XP.

“Worldwide, IE9 share on Windows 7 reached 3.6% for the month of March,” revealed Ryan Gavin, Senior Director, Internet Explorer Business and Marketing.

“The combination of IE9 and Windows 7 with the PC creates the best experience for users of the web and the developers and designers that create those sites. The adoption rate of IE9 is about five times higher then what we saw for Internet Explorer 8 in the same time frame.

As far as Windows 7 users are concerned, Firefox 4.0 climbed to a market share of only 2.80%, although it enjoys a share of 1.68% across all platforms, more than IE9 which was just at 1.04% at the end of the past month.

Out of the three new browser releases in March, Chrome 10 climbed the fastest, up to a usage share of 10.19% on Windows 7, but the comparison with IE9 and Firefox 4.0 is unjust, since neither Microsoft nor Mozilla had started to automatically upgrade users of older versions of their respective browsers.

The IE team only kicked off automatic upgrades a few days ago, and only for the early adopters still running IE9 Beta or RC, but not for other IE customers.

“All of our early downloads (through March 27) were user-initiated with over 90% of the downloads coming from non-IE9 RC or Beta users, including over a quarter that came from Chrome and Firefox users,” Gavin added.

Microsoft will only give green light to the distribution of IE9 through Windows Update in June 2011, so it’s to be expected that Internet Explorer 9 will have more to share in terms of usage share.

I have been running Internet Explorer since it hit Beta on September 15th, 2010 and through the Release Candidate and the RTW this browser has won me over.

Still, it wouldn’t be fair to credit only IE9, especially when Windows 7 integration played a critical role, at least for me.

I’ve already said this, and I’m going to repeat it. Users that want to see IE9 at the top of its game need to run it on Windows 7. Older Windows releases simply don’t do it justice.

While others are hard at work trying to get their browsers to pass for next generation operating system, Microsoft has integrated IE so deep into Windows that it no longer feels like you’re running a browser and an OS.

The two no longer function like disparate platforms, but work in unison, seamlessly. Having a website or a Cloud app behave in the same manner as a desktop application is something that users can easily achieve with IE9 and Windows 7, less so with rival browsers.

Firefox 4.0 Final for Windows is available for download here.

Firefox 4.0 Final for Linux is available for download here.

Firefox 4.0 Final for Mac is available for download here.

Google Chrome for Windows is available for download here.

Google Chrome for Linux is available for download here.

Google Chrome for Mac is available for download here.

Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 is available for download here.

Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 is available for download here.

Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows Vista SP2 64-bit edition and Windows Server 2008 SP2 64-bit edition is available for download here.

Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows 7 64-bit edition, Windows 7 SP1 64-bit edition, Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit edition and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 64-bit edition is available for download here.

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