[xSkiLLedx]

Web browser Firefox garnered the highest market share in Europe in December, pushing Internet Explorer to the second spot, reveals a study.

"Firefox overtook Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) to become the No.1 browser in Europe in December 2010... In December, Firefox took 38.11 per cent of European market share, compared to Internet Explorer's 37.52 per cent," website analytics firm StatCounter said today.

Once the most-used browser in many countries, Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) is facing stiff competition, especially from Google's Chrome.

In March last year, European Union's competition authorities and Microsoft had agreed to allow web users in the region to choose from many web browsers.

"This is the first time that IE has been dethroned from the number one spot in a major territory. This appears to be happening because Google's Chrome is stealing share from IE while Firefox is mainly maintaining its existing share," StatCounter's CEO Aodhan Cullen said in a statement.

"We are probably seeing the impact of the agreement between European Commission competition authorities and Microsoft, to offer EU users a choice and menu of browsers from March last year," Cullen said.

In Europe, Google Chrome was in the third place with a market share of 14.58 per cent in December, data compiled by StatCounter's research arm StatCounter Global Stats showed.

The findings are based on data from a sample of over 15 billion page views per month, including those from North America, collected from a network of more than 3 million websites.

Since the beginning of March, Microsoft offered Europeans the option to choose from among 12 browsers on the more than 100 million old and new PCs that use its Windows software.

Globally, Internet Explorer's share slipped to 46.9 percent in December, while Firefox was at 30.8 percent and Google was at 14.9 percent, StatCounter said.

Source: Daily Telegraph

[dcoidua]

firefox is best browser anyways.

[Mogle]

I wonder what would happen if Internet Explorer wasn't the standard browser in Windows? If you was presented with an option on which browser you want to install - not just "You got Internet Explorer - Do you want another?"

Sure, it's still possible to use another - but why would any non-savvy computer user do that? :O They don't know the difference. XD

[Robie]

Im personally not surprised, Im prefer GC and FF over IE any day.

[Reactive]

Internet explorer is the worst Browser available, to the point the only reason 37.52% of people use it is because they are either too stupid to change it or dont know different. all my friends are now using firefox since i showed it too them.

[monkiface]

Note: "In Europe"

Europeans are smarter than Americans. Maybe that's why.

[Minatsu]

Good to know they're moving away from IE; what a mess of a browser lol.

Had an internship last year at a software development firm, and the guy sitting next to me who was handling the company's SharePoint site said some employees were visiting it with IE4. Jesus.

[tehr000t]

Lol, Firefox/Chrome are definitely the best.

Most of the people I visit (friends/family/businesses/schools) all have the default IE and can't be bothered choosing a different browser or dont even know how to. Most of them have like 20 toolbars installed as well.

Recently installed google chrome on my grandfathers computer and he really liked it, my best friends use Firefox as well. Other then that I really cant be bothered telling everyone how crap IE is, too much effort lol.

[Hуѕтєяιa X™]

Yeah, this isn't a huge surprise, I myself use Chrome more than anything but FF is my next choice, IE is just trash.

[James Wilson M.D]

Im afraid my grandad beats you all...
He uses the AOL browser and still thinks the internet is divided into sections such as "GAMES" and "NEWS"

[Bitcoin Life]

Not suprised, FF is the best :D

[Node]

IE sucks lol. firefox is the best and most secure browser. so its not a big news to know that almost everybody use firefox

[sacrefrancais]

FF seems slow to me. Chrome must still be gaining ground?

[raamee]

The only disadvantage of the FF is the execution of js is too slow. Chrome seems fast in this. It is this issue made me to change to chrome. Hope in FF 4.0 they solve this issue.

[N!ck]

When I run Chrome on my computer, it runs .gifs at half the speed Firefox and Opera do.
Also in Tinychat, when I'd hit the spacebar, rather than spacing, it would scroll down my screen.

That's why I've chosen FireFox as my main browser, because Chrome has some bugs it needs to work out (or at least for me).