Firefox4 overtakes IE9
By Pulkit Sharma

Mozilla Firefox 4, which was launched yesterday (Wed, March 23 Indian time), has already taken 1.95% of the worldwide Internet browser market according to StatCounter, the free website analytics company. The firm’s research arm StatCounter Global Stats reports that on the first day of its release Firefox 4 scored higher globally than Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 9 which was launched more than a week ago.*

“Firefox 4 has really hit the ground running and has eclipsed the launch of IE 9,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “Although IE 9 has undoubtedly been hampered by its lack of compatibility with Windows XP.” By yesterday IE 9 had taken just 0.87% of the worldwide market.

When all versions of each browser are taken into account, Internet Explorer still leads the global market with 45% followed by Firefox with 30% and Chrome with 17%.

On a monthly basis, StatCounter figures show a steady decline in the IE global market share from 55% in February last year to 45% this year. In the same time frame Google’s Chrome has risen steadily from 7% worldwide to 17%.

* IE 9 and Firefox 4 were both available for beta testing prior to their respective launch dates