Google's Chrome browser market share hits 10% mark Makes gains as Internet Explorer slides

Google's Chrome browser broke the 10 per cent market share barrier last month, according to Net Applications.

That is significant given that Microsoft's Internet Explorer surfing tool continued to slide, notching up its worst performance ever last month, by reeling in a still impressive 56 per cent of the browser market.

Firefox, which is the world's second most popular browser, continued to hover around the 22 per cent mark for the seventh month in a row.

The open-source outfit will be hoping to change all that with the important release of Firefox 4, which is expected to be squirted out by Mozilla in late February.

Likewise, Microsoft is set to push out Internet Explorer 9 in the not-too-distant future. It hit beta status in September last year.

The company's fortunes in the browser wars have certainly slipped in the past year, according to Net Applications stats. IE's share has fallen by around five per cent.

There's also some good news in among the numbers for Apple. Its Safari browser continued to pick up market share that many may have expected Firefox to claim as its own.

Cupertino, helped along by a growth spurt in the Mac market, scored 6.3 per cent in January, up from 5.89 per cent in December.

But overall, Google seems to have won the browser battle – if not the war – last month.

The full stats can be pored over here. ®

interesting graphic, internet explorer is lower every month while Firefox still the same and Chrome keep growing.