It has been a long time coming but Firefox has finally surpassed Internet Explorer 6 in market share. Standards advocates and designers have been trying for years to have IE6 removed, but somehow, due to those who just use the browser that comes with windows and choose never to update, it just has not died. Microsoft, in a move that has not helped, has extended support for the browser till the middle of 2010, and given longer extensions to other editions of Windows. Fortunately, with a multitude of new browsers, and the publicity surrounding them, there is more awareness now of the extra features and standards compliance that the new browsers bring.
What suprises most is that at the very least, there has been no massive move to newer version of IE, especially since IE6 does not have any form of tabbed browsing.
According to October browser usage statistics, as reported on the tech site Ars Technica, Firefox has finally surpassed the grandfather of the modern browser. Still, IE6’s market share of 23% is still massive when you take into account the sheer number of computers online, and still more than any other single browser. Firefox now has 24% of worldwide browser share, but only if you combine all editions of Firefox. IE6 market share is expected to erode further when both Home users and corporate users upgrade to Windows 7, and we are then likely to see a massive surge in the market share of IE8.
Follow us on Social Media!