Firefox 3.5 world’s most popular browser

The unthinkable has happened, even if just. Firefox has finally displaced IE as the most used browser. Before one jumps to conclusions, the details are as follows. As per Stat Counter, the web’s counter outfit, for the week ended December 20, 2009, Firefox 3.5 is the world’s most used browser, with a user share of 21.93%. IE 7.0 follows close at 21.2%. Microsoft’s latest and best browser till date, the IE 8.0, however has seen a very steady increase in its share of users, and is currently third at 20.33%.

Overall though, Microsoft still retains its stronghold of the browser market, with it’s three dominant versions, IE 6.0, 7.0, and 8.0 holding on to a massive  55.42% of the market share. It is ironical though that Firefox’s most downloaded, yet most criticised version, the Firefox 3.5 achieves the distinction of being the first time in years that a non-Microsoft browser has got the top position. It remains however to be seen as to how long Mozilla can hold on to this position as the drop in the usage of Internet Explorer versions 6.0 and 7.0 is being attributed to an aggressive campaign by Microsoft to upgrade users to its latest version, the IE 8.0.

The browser share patterns can be seen at Stat Counter