There's a never-ending battle between Internet browsers. Microsoft's has held the lead for years with more than half of all browsers, but a recent survey shows that Mozilla, Firefox and Google Chrome are catching up.
Analytics company Net Applications has been tracking the data for a while via their browser analytics app NetMarketShare, which tracks browser use. Now, their latest data is out about usage between March and April.
- Internet Explorer: Down 0.71 points to 55.83 percent
- Chrome: Up 0.69 points to 25.68 percent
- Firefox: Down 0.19 points to 11.70 percent
- Safari: Up 0.12 points to 5.12
- Opera: Up 0.05 points to 0.48 percent
It's not surprising that Windows is still number one in the browser game, since it is the default browser on most computers. However, Chrome's rise is good for web developers, since it offers more capabilities than IE. The latest version of the browser, Chrome 42, is a major reason for its ascension.
What version of Internet Explorer is most popular? If VentureBeat's data is correct, Internet Explorer 8 was the most popular for the last few months. This is partly because Windows XP users could not use anything newer than IE8. Microsoft's recent decision to cancel support for Windows XP has caused a number of users to upgrade their systems, despite all the flaws in Windows 8 and 8.1.
While all this is good news for IE and for Chrome, that hasn't been the case for Mozilla. "Mozilla's Firefox has been hitting new lows for months, including a new low of 11.60 percent in February, and it's back down very close to that figure once again," reports Venturebeat. "Thankfully, Firefox's built-in upgrade system continues to work well. Firefox 37 grabbed 6.12 points to hit 6.45 percent, while Firefox 36 dropped 5.24 percentage points and Firefox 35 fell 1.21 percentage points."
You can see VentureBeat's full report (with graphs) here.
