For the seventh straight month, the market share for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer declined, according to Net Applications.
In January 2009, Internet Explorer commanded a 67.6% market share down from 75.5% in January 2008 and down from over 90% in January 2005.
The biggest gainer over the last twelve months was Firefox, which commanded a 21.5% share in January 2009, up from 17.0% a year earlier.
During December, Firefox exceeded a 20% share for a full month, which was a first. Mozilla’s CEO, John Lilly, gave credit to the Mozilla community:
“Reaching 20 per cent worldwide market share is a significant milestone for Firefox and Mozilla. It’s a huge achievement by the global Mozilla community, one that just a few years ago most would have considered impossible. The open web is more vibrant than ever, and the thousands of Mozilla contributors around the world have played a major role in making it that way.”
Rounding out the top five in market share was Apple’s Safari (8.3%), Google’s Chrome (1.1%) and Opera (0.7%). The top five browsers accounted for 99.2% of all web browsing.
2012 predictions: Apple overtakes MicroSoft. FireFox overtakes Internet Explorer. And all for the betterment of mankind. :)