Internet Explorer 6 marketshare finally below 5 percent

Internet Explorer 6 has finally dropped to less than 5 percent share in the US, new data from StatCounter shows. The browser from 2001 has sunk to just over 4.7 percent in May. It accompanies an even faster decline from IE7, which dropped most of a point to 16.6 percent; only IE8 gained share among Microsoft's browsers, crossing the 30 percent mark for the first time to reach 30.5 percent of use.

The IE platform as a whole dropped very slightly in the last month to reach 51.9 percent and was mostly affected by Chrome. Google's browser grew from 7.7 percent of the field in April to nearly 8.1 percent last month. Other alternative browsers stayed flat or declined, as Firefox fell to 29.3 percent and Safari was virtually steady at 9.1 percent.