The web browser wars is still dominated by a version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. NetMarketShare.com reports that IE 8 from Microsoft is still the leader worldwide with 29 percent of the market share for PC browsers for the month of October. The latest versions of Google's Chrome (14.0) and Mozilla's Firefox (7.0) are in second and third place with 13.65 percent and 10.18 percent of the market, respectively.
Microsoft loves to spin the numbers a bit on its official Internet Explorer blog and in October it is no different. 34.9 percent of Windows 7 users now use Internet Explorer 9 here in the US, followed by Chrome with 14.3 percent and Firefox at 11.8 percent. Microsoft has continued to try to get Internet PC users to dump Internet Explorer 6, which still has 7.49 percent of the browser market. It is still close behind IE 9 which has 9.79 percent.
While Microsoft sees getting rid of IE 6 as a priority, due to security issues with malware creators, we think the real issue is with Chrome and Firefox. Microsoft continues to stick with slow releases of new versions of its browser, while Firefox and Chrome keep releasing new versions with major new features and performance improvements. Chrome handles these software updates automatically while Firefox is constantly releasing new versions of the web browser.
We think Microsoft needs to start to do the same, with rapid releases of major new software updates for Internet Explorer. Browser users are expecting such things at the moment and Microsoft needs to move with the tide towards faster updates of major new Internet Explorer software versions.
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