Firefox 3.5 is now the most popular browser worldwide, edging past Internet Explorer 7, according to analytics site StatCounter.

The timing has favored FF3.5, however: IE7 usage has died off as people upgrade to IE8, meaning that Internet Explorer's market share is currently spread equally across IE7 and IE8. Add together all versions of IE versus all versions of Firefox, and Microsoft's browser is still leading the pack by a long way.

Nonetheless, the trend lines favor Firefox in the long run: IE's market share continues its slow decline while Firefox has sustained steady growth.

StatCounter uses its tracking codes on 3 million websites (5 billion total pageviews) to generate the numbers.

[via Slashdot]