Net App Browser Share July

Internet Explorer's share of the web browser market has dropped to its lowest point in recent memory thanks to inroads from Apple and Google, new stats from Net Applications show. The web tracking firm says Microsoft's browser now has 67.68 percent of the market, lower than a previous low in April. Most of the losses came from both Chrome and Safari, which themselves reached all-time highs of 2.59 percent and 4.07 percent respectively.

In spite of the formal release of Firefox 3.5, the Mozilla-made browser's market share for all Firefox versions was near-flat from month to month at 22.47 percent. Opera ultimately declined slightly to 1.97 percent, while unusually the now defunct Netscape climbed to 0.67 percent.

Microsoft's decline isn't directly explained but is helped by wider distribution of Safari 4 and more active marketing for Chrome on Google's own websites. Both browsers stress compatibility and raw speed while Internet Explorer 8 is regularly the slowest and least accurate modern browser. Firefox recently closed most, but not all, of the performance gap but focuses on customization first.

By Electronista Staff