Browser Battle: Microsoft IE Loses Traction, As Google Chrome Takeover

Google Chrome is now the No. 1 browser officially, according to Web tracker, Net Market (https://www.netmarket.com) .

In April, Google Chrome had 41.6 percent share of all desktop browser traffic picked up by Net Market Share, up from 39 percent in March. Over the same time, Internet Explorer’s (IE) share dropped to 41.3 percent from 43.4 percent. This marks the first time Chrome has surpasssed IE to assume the top spot.

After years of riding IE's dominance, Microsoft is moving on with the more modern Edge browser in Windows 10. Chrome’s growth is particularly impressive as IE comes bundled as the default browser with every version of Windows except for 10. Windows users who want Google Chrome must manually install it and choose it as their default browser.

At the same time, Firefox's appeal has been plummeting, according to Net Market Share. Mozilla's browser saw a market share of 9.7 percent last month, down from 10.5 percent the prior month. Firefox has been mired in third place since March of 2014.

Google Chrome has actually been in first place since 2012, states another Web tracker, StatCounter(https://statcounter.com) , which puts Firefox second and Internet Explorer in third.

Each Web tracker uses its own somewhat unique methods and sources to determine Web traffic data. For example, Net Applications counts unique visitors per day rather than page views, covers around 40,000 websites and has a stronger presence in certain countries than other Web trackers. StatCounter analyses the overall volume of Web traffic and tracks more than 3 million sites around the world.