Safari, Chrome use still growing

Stephen Withers
Monday, 03 October 2011 07:43

Business IT - Technology

Mirroring growth in Mac OS X's overall web share, usage of Apple's Safari browser has cracked the 5% figure for the first time. The usage of Chrome also continues to grow.

According to Net Applications' NetMarketShare preliminary numbers for September 2011, Safari accounted for 5.02% of desktop browser usage. Chrome use continues to climb, while Firefox has lost any gains made in the last 12 months.

The growth in Safari usage reported by NetMarketShare follows some initial claims that Safari use had slipped following the arrival of Safari 5.1. The current browser has some quirks, including unnecessary page refreshes and reloading all pages when one is supposedly not responding.

Firefox's share stood at 22.48% in September 2011, down more than one percentage point on September 2010 (23.69%). It peaked at 23.72% in January 2011.

Chrome, in comparison, continues to pile on the numbers. At 16.20%, its usage has almost doubled from 8.24% a year ago. Its growth has been continuous in that period.

Internet Explorer dropped the best part of one percentage point from 55.31% in August to 54.39% in September. While its fall from glory continues, it still accounts for more than double the usage of its closest rival.

More web share figures - see page 2.