04 January 2010 | Author: D. Warburton Search Copywriter

Chrome is world's third most popular web browser

Google has proved its multi-tasking online mettle once again as news surfaces that Chrome has risen to become the world's third most popular web browser.

December figures released by Net Applications have been reviewed by the company's quality assurance team, which has now confirmed that Google's browser has overtaken Apple's Safari in worldwide popularity.

IT Wire reports that Chrome accounted for 4.63 per cent of the market share last month, compared to Safari's 4.46 per cent. Safari held the highest share for the year however, recovering from a slight slump to 4.36 per cent in November to exceed its October market share of 4.42 per cent.

Analysts are suggesting that Google's early-December surge may have been partly due to the release of the Chrome beta for Mac OS X, while it was reported earlier last year that Chrome is a more secure browser than Safari.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still the world's dominant web browser with 62.69 per cent of the market share, despite the browser slipping by around one per cent each month during the second half of 2009. Mozilla's Firefox still holds second place with 24.61 per cent, and the top five is rounded out by Opera, with a 2.40 per cent share.

Net Applications found that use of Microsoft's Windows operating system also fell throughout 2009, but at a much slower rate - slipping gradually from 93.66 per cent in January to 92.21 per cent in December. The greatest beneficiary of this fall was Mac OS X, which increased its share from 4.71 to 5.11 per cent across the same period, compared to Linux's rise from 0.90 to 1.02 per cent.

The web stats company also found that mobile operating systems increased their market share significantly in 2009, with many doubling or tripling their figures. Apple's iPhone rose from 0.20 to 0.44 per cent while Java ME increased from 0.22 to 0.53 per cent and Symbian from 0.07 to 0.23 per cent across the year.

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