It may be 2012, but apparently someone hasn't got the message. Internet Explorer's share of the desktop browser market grew in January, and most of that growth was due to Internet Explorer 6. Internet Explorer 6 only runs on one supported operating system, Windows XP, and that too gained market share last month.

On the desktop, Internet Explorer gained 1.09 points for a share of 52.96 percent. Firefox dropped 0.95 points to 20.88 points. For the first time since its launch, Chrome's share also fell, down 0.15 points to 18.94 percent. Safari declined slightly, down 0.07 points to 4.9 percent, and Opera was essentially unchanged, up 0.01 points to 1.67 percent.

Chrome's slight drop in share is a first. Until January, Google's browser had showed robust, vigorous growth, and the reversal of that growth is surprising. One possible explanation is that Google penalized the Page Rank of Chrome's own website on January 3, after it emerged that sponsored blog posts promoting the browser had been made, in contravention of Google's spam-prevention rules. To penalize this action, the Chrome site had its rank set to zero for 60 days, pushing it much lower down Google's search rankings.





Safari still dominates the more volatile mobile market.

The version breakdowns show where Internet Explorer's biggest gains have come from. Two-thirds of Internet Explorer's growth came from Internet Explorer 6, with the rest split evenly between versions 7, 8, and 9. The ancient browser is now used by 8.38 percent of Internet users, up from last month's 7.66 percent.

Operating system market share figures from Net Market Share, the source we use for our browser statistics, provides some explanation. Windows XP's market share grew last month, rising by 0.67 points to 47.19 percent. At the same time, Windows 7 lost share for the first time since its introduction, falling 0.59 points to 36.40 percent.

Windows XP ships with Internet Explorer 6, and can only run Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8, and so increased use of that ancient operating system is likely to stimulate increased usage of those legacy browsers.

The version breakdowns for Chrome and Firefox show the same pattern we have come to expect. Chrome's mysterious hardcore set of reluctant upgraders continues to account for more than ten percent of the browser's usage. Firefox's userbase continues to be split between those on the rapid release track and those on the non-rapid-release 3.6 track.

Looking forward, we might expect those 3.6 users to start migrating to Firefox 10. Released on January 31, Firefox 10 is a dual release. For consumers, there is the regular rapid release version that will be replaced with Firefox 11 in six or so weeks. For organizations, there is the Extended Support Release that will receive patches for approximately the next year. Firefox 3.6 will continue to be supported until April 24, when Firefox 12 is released, giving organizations 12 weeks to test and validate Firefox 10.

The Internet Explorer version breakdown should also start to shift. In January Microsoft started delivering Internet Explorer 9 as an automatic, noninteractive update in Australia and Brazil. Over the next few months, this will be extended globally. The update will only be given to those users who have not previously rejected the Internet Explorer upgrade, so will not reach every potential upgrader; nonetheless, it should tend to reduce usage of the older versions of the browser.





Here at Ars, Chrome's rise continues unabated.