Internet Explorer dips below 70%, Firefox above 20%

Not only did Windows' marketshare drop to a 15-year low, but Internet Explorer also suffered a severe hit last month that pushed it's marketshare under 70 percent for the first time in almost nine years. TG Daily dug up the latest browser marketshare figures from Net Applications and reports Internet Explorer's marketshare dropped from 71.27 percent in October to 69.77 percent in November, while Firefox rose from 19.97 percent to 20.78 percent in the same timeframe.

Internet Explorer has now lost a total of 5.8 percent marketshare this year, and at 69.77 percent the browser is sitting on its lowest marketshare since early 2000. The third most popular browser is Apple Safari with 7.13 percent marketshare, and Google climbed to 0.83 percent, slightly beating Opera's 0.71 percent marketshare.

According to Net Applications, Chrome has hit a new record market share and if we believe the data published, then it is clear that Google’s rapid and automated update cycle for Chrome is a significant contributor to the browser’s market share. Chrome currently stands at version 0.4.154.25 and was most recently updated on Thursday of last week.

The extended Thanksgiving weekend contributed to Firefox’ market share gain, since Firefox is especially strong in the consumer market, while certain Internet Explorer versions, such as IE6 (which still has an average market share of more than 20%), have a strong corporate user base and cause IE’s market share to decline substantially on weekends and holidays. However, Firefox would have posted 20%+ market share even without the Thanksgiving weekend: The browser fell slightly below 20% on only seven days during the month, while posting shares of up to 22.7% on others, according to Net Applications.