IE slips, Chrome gains in browser wars

Google's Chrome continues its slow, but steady rise in the browser wars, as Microsoft's Internet Explorer hit a new low.

The latest statistics from NetApplications show that Internet Explorer dipped below 60 percent in browser market share for the first time since Microsoft' ascent to browser dominance at the turn of the century. The metrics do vary somewhat depending on who's counting, however, as Nielsen pegs IE's browser share at closer to 70 percent, the BBC reports.

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Still, stat counters agree that Internet Explorer is losing ground to the competition, specifically Chrome, which now holds 6.7 percent of the market. Compared to the same time last year, Chrome's share has nearly quadrupled. Firefox, the second-most popular browser, continues to hold at around 24.5 percent.

Gartner analyst Jeffrey Mann explained to the BBC that consumers are becoming more aware of Internet Explorer's competition, as Google advertises its Chrome browser and more people use Apple's Safari on Macs. Recently, Google started steering YouTube users away from IE6, suggesting that they pick a new browser from a list that displays Chrome first. I'd argue that as the Web browser becomes the most important part of the computer, people start paying attention to all the choices available.

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A couple other factors worth noting: In Europe, Internet Explorer is no longer automatically installed on Windows 7 PCs. Instead, users get to choose from a list of browsers, with the top five displayed in random order. IE has also seen some bad press lately, getting blamed for allowing an attack on Google in China.

Not all is lost for Internet Explorer. Microsoft's preview of IE9 hints at some great leaps forward in multimedia playback, including hardware-accelerated HTML 5 rendering. If IE can lead the pack on performance, instead of just introducing more usability features, it could renew interest -- that is, until all the other browsers follow suit.

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