The browser market share figures are in for February 2013, and Internet Explorer has risen once again at the expense of Chrome, while Firefox, Safari and Opera also managed to gain users. Last month Internet Explorer managed to pass 55% global market share, according to Net Applications, and this month the most popular browser rose again to 55.82% (up 0.68% from 55.14%) to keep its commanding lead in check.

Chrome dropped to a new low, falling a huge 1.21% (from 17.48%) to occupy 16.27% of the market in February, making it the lowest share for Google's browser since September 2011. Firefox has increased its lead over Chrome as the second most used browser, breaking the 20% barrier again with 20.12% of the market, up from 19.94% the previous month. Safari was up 0.18% to 5.24%, while Opera rose 0.07% to keep 1.82% of the market.

Internet Explorer 8.0 is still the most used browser version worldwide with 23.38% market share, however Internet Explorer 9.0 (21.67%) is closing the gap having gained market share throughout February. IE6 is dropping users while still hovering around the 6% usage mark, while IE10 has been rapidly gaining users over the past few months and sits on a 1.57% share. With IE10 now available for Windows 7, expect this figure to rise significantly in March.

Source: Net Applications