Internet Explorer market share drops under 60%

Software giant Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser has seen its market share fall under 60%, according to new figures released by Net Applications.

The data found IE had a share of just 59.65%, down from the 60.4% recorded in August. Meanwhile, Firefox increased 0.3% to 22.96%, followed by Chrome at 7.98%, Safari at 5.27% and Opera at 2.39%.

Microsoft hopes to increase the browser’s popularity with a new version. Last week senior director of IE business and marketing Ryan Gavin said in a company blog post that it has recorded six million downloads of the new version.

“We are pleased to report that customers are choosing more modern browsers, as evident by the continued decline of IE6 and IE7 usage,” he said.