Browser Wars: IE, Mobile Browsing Show Gains

According to the October statistics from NetMarketShare, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser made some significant market share gains in October. In addition, mobile browsing accounted for more than 10 percent of all browsing for the first time.

ZDNet’s Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols wrote, “It seemed like a predictable trend: Watch Internet Explorer’s (IE’s) market share drop. For the longest time, you could count on IE losing Web browser market share and either Chrome or Firefox picking up users. However, the latest October 2012 numbers from NetMarketShare show that IE is continuing to regain lost ground, thus ensuring its rule as the most popular desktop Web browser, with 54 percent of the market worldwide.”

The Next Web’s Emil Protalinski observed, “Between September and October, Internet Explorer gained an impressive 0.50 percentage points. Firefox meanwhile lost 0.09 percentage points, Chrome fell a sizeable 0.31 percentage points (more than in September), and Safari lost 0.05 percentage points.”

Peter Bright from Ars Technica reported, “Mozilla Firefox has—barely—dipped below 20 percent market share for the second time in six months, after an October that saw Microsoft Internet Explorer grow, Google Chrome fall, and mobile browsing account for 10 percent of all Web traffic for the first time ever.”

MaximumPC’s Paul Lilly called the report further proof “that mobile devices are the hottest items on the planet right now” and noted, “Mobile browsing has nearly doubled from a year ago, going from a 5.52 percent share of the market in October 2011 to 10.29 percent in October 2012. In that same time frame, the share of browsing occurring on desktops has declined from 94.16 percent to 89.37 percent.”