Google Chrome continues to grab IE and Firefox market share

Google's Chrome browser has almost doubled its market share after 10 months, whereas Internet Explorer use has tumbled by seven per cent in the same period, according to monthly data from Net Applications.

IE remains the most popular browser with a 53.69 per cent share, followed by Firefox with 21.67 per cent and Chrome with an all-time high of 13.11 per cent.

Although still in third place, Chrome has the fastest growing user base at almost three per cent since the turn of the year.

Apple's Safari browser consolidated its fourth place with a slight increase to 7.48 per cent, but fifth-placed Opera has dropped to a 10-month low of just 1.73 per cent.

Meanwhile, browsing from smartphones and tablets has increased dramatically as the devices penetrate the mainstream.

Some five per cent of all web surfing is now carried out on portable devices running platforms such as iOS, Android and BlackBerry, and the iPad now accounts for over one per cent of global web browsing.

It remains to be seen how long Microsoft can hold onto its browser dominance. IE is still the most commonly used browser in the enterprise, but Chrome continues to attract interest from enterprises despite its short development cycles, according to Google.

Mozilla has seen its market share drop by one per cent since the start of January, despite clocking up over 100 million downloads for the recently released Firefox 4 and following up with Firefox 5 last month.

Comments made by Firefox product manager Asa Dotzler about enterprise support are unlikely to have endeared the browser to the business community, and Mozilla was forced back track on its position regarding enterprise support.