Newly published figures from internet analyst OneStat.com show that Mozilla's Firefox now accounts for over 11 per cent of global browser use, and that Microsoft's Internet Explorer has slipped to 85 per cent.

Support for Firefox is strongest in Canada, where usage levels are at over 16 per cent. But UK surfers are lagging behind the curve, with less than five per cent choosing the open source browser.

"The global usage share of Mozilla's browser is still growing and it seems that Netscape users and some Internet Explorer users are switching to Firefox," said Niels Brinkman, co-founder of OneStat.com.

"It also looks like users of Internet Explorer on Mac computers are switching to Apple's Safari because the global usage share is still growing.

"It is also interesting to see that Internet Explorer has less global usage share in the US as in the UK."

Firefox appears to be taking market share from other browsers as well. While its share is up 2.8 per cent since April 2005, Internet Explorer is down 1.18 per cent.

The figures show that Safari is the third most popular browser after Internet Explorer and Firefox with 1.75 per cent of users, followed by Opera at 0.77 per cent and Netscape at 0.26 per cent.