THUNDER BAY – If you are viewing this website using Internet Explorer you are in what statistically is a shrinking number of Internet users. While some people are unaware that there are other options than the ever present Microsoft web browser, growing numbers of savvy Internet users are shifting to either Google Chrome, or to Firefox as their choice for an Internet browser. In fact, Google’s Chrome 15 has become the most popular web browser version worldwide for the first time on a weekly basis, according to StatCounter, the free website analytics company. The use of the Microsoft browser continues to be more popular in North America, but that number has been falling too.
The firm’s research arm StatCounter Global Stats reports that in the last full week in November, Chrome 15 took 23.6% of the worldwide market compared to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 at 23.5%. If one aggregates all versions then IE still leads the global market with Chrome in second position, having overtaken Firefox in November.
“Google announced Chrome for business exactly a year ago and IT administrators appear to have embraced it in a remarkably short time,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “Looking at the daily stats, Chrome 14 and 15 have been overtaking IE8 at weekends since the beginning of October. However, Chrome 15 overtook IE8 for the first time during the five day working week, in week commencing 5th December. It looks as if people favour Chrome on weekends at home but office commercial use has now caught up.”
On NetNewsledger, over the past month, Internet Explorer has been used by 41.85% of our visitors, while Firefox is used by 20.20% and Google Chrome by 15.85%. Interestingly Safari, the Mac Browser has climbed to 13.59% of our visitors.
In the US Internet Explorer 8 continues to be the most popular browser version with 27.0% for week commencing 5th December compared to 18.1% for Chrome 15. However, in the UK Chrome 15 overtook IE8 in the week commencing November 7th. Last week (commencing 5th December) Chrome 15 had 24.7% in the UK compared to IE8 on 21.1%.
StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month (4 billion from the US) from the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.