Mozilla’s Firefox 4 software overtook Firefox 3.6 in May to become the most popular Mozilla Internet browser for the first time with a worldwide market share of 14.2%, according to the StatCounter.
The previous version of the browser – Firefox 3.6 – is still popular amongst Internet users, however both lag behind Chrome 11 browser and the ever-dominant Internet Explorer 8. Google’s browser currently holds a 16% share of the market, narrowly beating Mozilla’s offerings into second place with Microsoft’s 16 month-old browser accounting for 29.06% to rank top of the twelve most popular browser versions currently in use.
The rapid adoption of Firefox 4 is noteworthy as users are required to manually update their browser software (much like Internet Explorer), whereas Google’s Chrome browser typically updates in the background without prompting from the user.
When combined, the different versions of Internet Explorer leads globally with 43.9% which followed by Firefox with 29.3%. Google’s Chrome browser posts the biggest increase however, rising from 8.6% a year ago to 19.4% in May 2011.
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