Just a few years ago, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer owned the browser market with three quarters share and the only real alternative was Mozilla’s Open Source Firefox. However, in 2008, Google noticed Apple’s WebKit Browser engine and built their own Chrome browser. In late 2009, Chrome started to break out of the “other” category in StatCounter’s figures and started its rise to what will likely to be the world’s most used desktop browser in 2012.

A few months ago, Chrome passed Firefox and if you look at the slope of the graph over time, it looks like Chrome’s rise is still accelerating. Even if it only grows at its 2011 rate and IE continues to fall at its 2011 rate, Chrome will pass Internet Explorer in late Summer 2012 according to Statcounter’s numbers. Below, I have extrapolated IE and Chrome’s 2011 numbers over the first half of 2012…

Google also has a strong showing in Mobile with a more modest share of the pie but an ever-growing Android handset market. Interestingly, Google has only recently started considering its Android Browser to be “Chrome.”

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