IE slips further as Firefox, Safari, Chrome gain

[whyme]

The amount of market share commanded by Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has dropped for the seventh consecutive month.
Internet Explorer now has 67.55 percent of global browser market share, a drop of over seven percentage points in a year, according to figures from Web metrics company Net Applications, released Monday. Mozilla's Firefox browser, meanwhile, has gained market share in the same time frame, climbing over three percentage points to 21.53 percent.

Microsoft's browser has steadily lost ground to its competitors in the past year. Its share dropped sharply in both October and November 2008, when it lost over one percentage point in each month.
Apple's Safari browser now stands at 8.29 percent, up from 7.13 percent in November, when IE dipped. Safari has gained share more quickly than Firefox in that period: Mozilla's browser accounted for 20.78 percent of browser use three months ago, and now has 21.53 percent.
Google's Chrome browser, launched in September 2008, now has 1.12 percent of the market, having overtaken Opera in November. Opera's share of the market now stands at 0.7 percent.
Internet Explorer's drop of seven percentage point since February last year is a continuing trend. Microsoft lost over nine percent of browser market share in the preceding two years.
Most of IE's drop in the past year has been in Internet Explorer 6, which fell from 30.63 percent last February to 19.21 percent this January. Internet Explorer 7 has gained market share overall over the same time period, rising from 44.03 percent to 47.32 percent.
Microsoft launched the first release candidate for Internet Explorer 8 last week. It hopes to regain lost ground by adding features such as private browsing and a cross-site scripting filter.

Source http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10154447-93.html

[SealLion]

I think in the end, there'll be something that'll stabilize the rankings and percentages of market share for each browser.

Right now, it looks like IE is slipping so fast, it can't even grab something to hang on to.
FF has it's market share increased higher and higher, I think that the Mozilla foundation will be afraid it'll lose some percentage market share if a big slip ever occurs for thier products.
that's my opinion.

But like I say, I think in the end, some browsers will eventually stabilize and remain for a long time in what-ever place they slide into.

IE has been falling from grace for awhile now. Maybe it should.
There's so many browsers out there, I can't even count that high.

People need and deserve variety for browser options.
People like doing different things with their browsers.

There's 3D browsers, social-type browsers, browsers that tab your pages if you want. One of these days, someone's gonna invent a browser that'll cook your breakfast for you.

[anon]

FF has it's market share increased higher and higher, I think that the Mozilla foundation will be afraid it'll lose some percentage market share if a big slip ever occurs for thier products.

Google's funding Firefox, so no problem And according them, Chrome shouldn't "interfere" with that.

FF introduced the concept of... competence, lol.

Either way, it's good that there are so many browsers out there, this increases the likeliness of finding one you like if it's not part of the "mainstream". K-Meleon, for example - the Gecko-based, light and fast Windows alternative to Firefox.