Microsoft's Internet Explorer saw a slight uptick in March, shaving browser market share from rivals like Firefox and Chrome.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer saw a slight uptick in March, shaving browser market share from rivals like Firefox and Chrome.

The software giant, meanwhile, said that nearly 50 percent of Windows 7 users are now using its most-recent browser, IE9. About 14.6 percent are on Chrome 17/18, while 11.6 percent are on Firefox 11.

Overall, Microsoft saw IE usage increase from 52.84 percent global market share in February to 53.83 percent in March, according to data from Net Applications.

"With a gain of .99 percent last month and a net gain of 1.2 percent global usage share over the last five months, Internet Explorer has stabilized and even reversed its usage share declines of the last few years," Net Applications said.

The other top browsers - Firefox, Chrome, and Safari - saw slight declines last month. Mozilla's Firefox came in second with 20.55 percent of the market, down from 20.92 percent last month. Google's Chrome was in third place with 18.57 percent, down from 18.9 percent, while Apple's Safari dropped from 5.2 percent to 5.07 percent.

Last month, that Google's January decision to lower the page rank of google.com/chrome for at least two months in the wake of a promotion controversy also resulted in the browser losing some market share to IE.

Most, or 92.5 percent, of users were on Windows-based machines, while 6.5 percent used Macs last month. When it came to mobile and tablet browser market share, however, the success of the iPad and iPhone helped make Safari the dominant browser with 60.4 percent of the market. The stock Android browser came in second with 18.3 percent, followed by Opera Mini at 15.4 percent.

About 59.9 percent of users accessing the mobile Web were using an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, while 18.7 percent were on an Android-powered device, Net Applications said.

Google was the dominant search engine on mobile devices, with 90.1 percent of users, follwed by Yahoo with 6.4 percent, China's Baidu with 1.7 percent, and Microsoft's Bing with 1.3 percent. On the desktop, Google had 79.9 percent, followed by Yahoo (6.8 percent), Baidu (6.5 percent), and Bing (4.6 percent).

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