Microsoft's browser market share drops 9.5 percent in a year

By Stuart Corner
Saturday, 08 September 2007 01:28

Home IT

Microsoft Explorer's share of the browser market has fallen almost 10 percent in the past 12 months, to 63.9 percent, with most of the share going to Firefox which has boosted its share from 11.8 to 17.4 percent.

The figures come from Janco and the IT Productivity Center 's latest "Browser and Operating System Market Share White Paper." It also reports that Google Desktop is gaining market share (up from 0.64 to 2.38 percent) and that "Netscape version 8 is dead" with Netscape's overall market share down marginally to 10.2 percent.

The white paper also contains recommendations on which browsers to use and not use. It costs $US24. A summary can be found on the Janco's web site (http://www.e-janco.com/browser.htm ).

Janco, a US consulting firm that publishes the HandiGuide series of books, claims to have collected consistent data on browser activity since September 1997. It shows Microsoft's share peaking at over 90 percent in early 2002, but steadily declining ever since.