Stats show that Microsoft’s IE8 is still leading the charts

Aug 1, 2014 06:48 GMT  ·  By

If you’re currently using Internet Explorer 8 to browse the web, you’re not alone. Statistics provided by market research firm Net Applications for the month of July 2014 reveal that, at this point, Internet Explorer 8 is the number one browser in the world with a share of 21.56 percent, more than any other similar app currently on the market, be it a Microsoft or non-Microsoft solution.

The second place goes to Internet Explorer 11, which is currently installed on 16.78 percent of the desktop computers worldwide, while Firefox 30 is third with a market share of 9.27 percent.

Chrome 35 is only the fourth in the list with a share of 9.08 percent, followed by two other Internet Explorer versions, 9 and 10, with 9.06 and 6.26 percent, respectively.

What’s interesting is that Internet Explorer 8 is no longer receiving support from Microsoft, and although it’s currently the world’s number one browser, the software giant is not releasing any security updates and patches for this particular version.

In fact, the company is warning that those who stay on Internet Explorer 8 could become vulnerable to attacks in case someone finds an unpatched flaw in the browser, so everyone is recommended to upgrade to a different version of Internet Explorer, or to at least switch to another browser, as soon as possible.

“Windows Internet Explorer 8 is also no longer supported, so if you use it (or any other browser) to surf the web, you might be exposing your PC to additional threats,” Microsoft says.

As far as the overall market share is concerned, Internet Explorer is currently powering 58.01 percent of the computers worldwide, while Chrome is second with 20.37 percent. Firefox is third with 15.08 percent, while Safari and Opera are next with 5.16 and 0.99 percent, respectively.

Microsoft claims that Internet Explorer “is faster than Chrome, Firefox and Opera,” pointing to a number of benchmarks to demonstrate that its own browser has what it takes to load pages faster than all its rivals.

“WebKit SunSpider tests browsers’ JavaScript execution performance. In November 2013, a SunSpider test was run on leading browsers. The SunSpider benchmark shows Internet Explorer to be faster than other browsers tested (Chrome 28, Firefox 22, and Opera 15),” the company said.

At this point, the latest version of Internet Explorer is 11 and is part of Windows 8.1. Word has it that Microsoft might launch Internet Explorer 12 as part of the Windows 9 rollout in April 2015.