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Google’s (s goog) Chrome browser continues to gain market share as Microsoft’s (s msft) Internet Explorer continues to decline — Firefox’s share, meanwhile, remains largely unchanged, according to the most recent surveys of browser usage. StatCounter said that in May, usage of IE 6 fell below the 5 percent mark in the U.S. and Europe for the first time, with overall usage of Internet Explorer at around 53 percent, while Firefox remained relatively flat at about 31 percent. Chrome’s share rose to 8.6 percent from the 6 percent mark at the beginning of the year.

Results from NetMarketShare show a similar trend, although slightly different overall numbers: the research firm has IE dropping to below 60 percent from 67 percent (StatCounter shows the browser at 52.7 percent overall) and Firefox at the 24 percent mark, up 2 percent from the same period last year. NetMarketShare has Chrome’s usage at 7 percent in May, up from just 3 percent a year ago.

Web traffic company GetClicky, meanwhile, shows Internet Explorer’s market share at just over 50 percent at the end of May, while Firefox stood at 32 percent. The firm’s usage logs put Chrome at close to 10 percent market share.

As Om recently noted, the Mozilla browser continues to have a substantial position, and doesn’t appear to be losing much share to Chrome. However, it doesn’t appear to be gaining much either, and the Google browser is gaining ground rapidly (albeit from a much smaller user base). Whether Firefox — which used to be the “cool” upstart browser — can regain some of its lost momentum remains to be seen.

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