Mozilla Firefox Gaining Ground on Microsoft IE

Mozilla’s open-source Internet browser Firefox is increasingly gaining ground in the browser space and stealing away market share from Microsoft’s widely used Internet Explorer browser, capturing some 11 percent of the worldwide market in July, Forbes reports.

The news is based on research from Web analytics firm Net Applications.

According to Net Applications, Firefox’s 11.3 percent market share in July is 1.8 percent higher than its market share in January 2006, while Microsoft lost 1.7 percent of the market during the same period with 83.6 percent market share in July compared to its 85.3 percent in January, according to Forbes.

Numbers from Internet traffic-tracking firm OneStat suggest that in the United States, Mozilla also took more of Microsoft’s browser user base, with a gain of 1.7 percent on its January market share of 14.1 percent, Forbes reports.

Mozilla announced on Monday that its Firefox browser has been downloaded more than 200 million times, but it specified that this number doesn’t necessarily represent as many users, according to Forbes.

Microsoft is currently working away on its upcoming browser, Internet Explorer 7—which is already available in a handful of beta versions—and the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant announced last week that it will distribute the browser software to users as an automatic update that they’ll have the option of opting out of. Internet Explorer 7’s official release is expected before the end of the year.

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Source: www.cio.com