Newly published figures released by web monitoring firm NetApplications show that Microsoft pulled back market share from rival browser users last month.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer was used by 87.2 per cent of website visitors in July, up from 86.56 per cent in June. Firefox, the second most popular browser, saw its share slip slightly from its high point of 8.71 per cent last month to 8.07 per cent in July.

"Mozilla recently created a for-profit division just in time to see its FireFox browser drop 0.7 per cent in 30 days," noted Dan Shapero, chief operating officer at NetApplications.

"Microsoft's Internet Explorer actually gained ground at the expense of FireFox recent stride. At 8.07 per cent, FireFox is still flirting with Mass Appeal, so August should be an interesting and telling month."

The organisation set up to spread interest in Firefox reported on Sunday that FireFox had now been downloaded 80 million times.

The two browsers account for over 95 per cent of the all the browsers used to access web content. Apple's Safari browser was the third most popular software, with 2.1% of the market.