Microsoft Internet Explorer

Chrome and Android, the two crucial weapons in Google’s assault on mobile and desktop, are showing no signs of stopping. We already reported today that Android passed iOS globally. When it comes to browsing the web, Google’s Chrome zoomed past the 25 percent mark for the first time this weekend, ConceivablyTech observed. More precisely, Chrome grabbed 25.02 percent share this past Sunday, per StatCounter Global Stats data.

The software has been growing rapidly, registering global market share of 18.29 percent in April, 19.36 percent in May 2011, 20.65 percent in June and 22.14 percent in July. Apple’s Safari grew marginally, adding just 0.02 percentage points to its 5.17 percent share in July. The latest StatCounter data, which may not be representative of the entire market, really spells trouble for Mozilla’s Firefox. Mozilla’s browser used to be the preferred alternative to Microsoft’s market-dominating Internet Explorer not that long time ago. How times change…

Firefox’s share is declining five times faster than Internet Explorer’s, indicating that Chrome is slowly but steadily chipping away at Firefox’s market position, which is now within spitting distance. Firefox scored a 27.49 share for the month of August versus 41.89 percent for Internet Explorer. The fact that only 14.5 percent of web users, or 54 percent of Firefox users, have upgraded to Firefox 6 is another indicative of shifting tides as Google gains significant ground in the web browsing space.

Google also benefits from the silent updating mechanism, a computer process that sits in the background to automatically keep your Chrome installation up to date, without any intervention on your part. Did the latest StatsCounter numbers surprise you? The writing has been on the wall for some time.

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A big milestone today as Google’s Chrome hits a cool 20 percent web usage share according to StatCounter numbers for the month of June (via TNW) based on aggregate data collected from their network of three million websites.

For the first time ever, Chrome passed the 20 percent mark globally, accounting for 20.65 share of all web browsing the world over. Compare that to just 2.8 percent in the year-ago period. Google’s browser is now chasing Firefox which fell from 30 percent in June 2010 to 28 percent in June 2011. All versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer have also fallen to 44 percent globally, down from 59 percent in June 2010.

In the United States Chrome’s rise was less rapid, hitting 16 percent in June while Microsoft’s and Mozilla’s browsers scored 46.5 percent and 24.7 percent, respectively. What’s especially interesting is Chrome’s share in South America where it grabbed 29.72 percent of the market, beating Firefox (24 percent) to the browser punch (Microsoft’s browser had 44.1 percent share). An indication of things to come globally?

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