Safari and Firefox invaded IE's market share

According to the survey conducted by NetApplications, in the past year, two Safari and Firefox web browsers are continuing to take over the market share of Internet Explorer.

Last year, Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser still dominates the browser market and outstripped other competitors with 85.05% market share. However, this number has decreased significantly compared to 90.31% in 2004.

The Firefox browser ended in 2005 with nearly 4.64% of the total market share, up nearly 10% from the previous year. NetApplications said, this open-source browser has significantly accelerated at the beginning of the year, but gradually declined in the summer months. And by the end of the year, with the emergence of Firefox 1.5, its market share had stronger growth.

Safari is the only browser with a steadily increasing market share every month. At the end of 2004, the browser market share was only 1.56% but by the end of 2005 it had surpassed Netscape to take third place with 3.07% market share.

The Netscape browser dropped to fourth place with 1.24% market share, while Opera accounted for only 0.55% market share, equal to 2004. NetApplications predicts that when the number of people accessing the Internet via handheld devices hands increase, the market share of this browser will increase.

NetApplication's data is collected from websites of small and medium-sized firms using its statistical software. The company said that the number of businesses surveyed is 40,000 and is still growing.