Google's Chrome 15 is the world's most popular
browser. StatCounter says, 23.6 percent of the browsers tracked by its global
system were Chrome 15. Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 accounted for 23.5
percent.
IE is the most popular browser overall, well ahead of Chrome. Stat Counter's
numbers still show all versions of IE taking a total of 40.09 percent of the
market, vs. 26.31 percent for all versions of Chrome. Firebox is at 25.07
percent, Apple's Safari is at 5.86 percent, and Opera gets 1.91 percent.
In January, Microsoft plans to use Windows Update's Auto Updates to upgrade
recalcitrant Windows users to newer versions of Internet Explorer--IE 8 for
Windows XP, and IE 9 for Windows Vista and 7. Given Chrome 15's extremely narrow
victory over IE 8 and the massive number of Windows XP PCs in the world, IE 8
presumably has a decent chance at snatching its crown back next month.
The last market-leading browser that wasn't IE
was Netscape Navigator. When its share crumbled in the 1990s, Internet Explorer
gained a monopoly on the market that looked like it would probably be permanent.