Microsoft's share of the Internet browser market has fallen by almost a tenth in the space of one year. The lost share has been split between Firefox, Safari and Google's new Chrome browser. (Source: informationweek.com)

Monitoring firm Net Applications has just released its browser statistics for October. While some reports are concentrating on the changes since September, which saw Internet Explorer drop by just one percentage point, the trends are much more striking when comparing October 2009 to October 2008.

Firefox Does Most Damage

During that one year period the percentage of Internet users who chose to browse with Internet Explorer dropped from 73.64% to 64.64%. Around half of that lost market share has gone to Mozilla's Firefox (19.6% rising to 24.07%) with the rest going to Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome. The latter pair both remain under the 5% mark, but, proportionally, have grown immensely in the past year, with Chrome's audience more than tripling. (Source: theatlantic.com)

The figures come from visitors to sites which use Net Application's web application services. While that represents only a sample of the entire Internet browsing audience, it's large and diverse enough to give a reliable overall picture, particularly with such a clear and continued trend.

Switching to a Rival Browser

In most cases where a user changes their browser, they are starting from the default option, Internet Explorer, and then switching to a rival. If they try a different browser and don't like it, they'll usually switch back quickly enough that it makes little difference to such figures. Once they do make the switch for good, they are unlikely to switch back to Internet Explorer; even if a new IE edition is an improvement, many defectors won't bother trying it out.

There are a few reasons why someone would switch to a rival browser. Firefox appears to be gaining partly because it's the leading rival (and thus the obvious choice for trying an alternative) and partly because of theories that suggest it's more secure. Safari is gaining ground due to the increased use of Apple devices, particularly the iPhone. And the low hardware demands of Chrome appear to be particularly attractive to the growing number of netbook users. (Source: informationweek.com)