As we waved goodbye to another month, it's time to see which browser was the most popular. For the month of June, Net Application data shows Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) as the most popular Web browser, while StatCounter once again features Google's Chrome at the top spot.
According to Net Applications, IE ranked top in June with 54 percent, although its share of the desktop browser market has dropped in recent years. IE seized 56.7 percent last year, while in 2007 it held nearly 80 percent. Mozilla's Firefox came in second last month, although it also lost market share recently. Firefox grabbed a 20 percent share last month, down from 23 percent a year ago and 25 percent in April 2010. Meanwhile, Google's popular Chrome browser came in third, with 19 percent of the market. Unlike IE and Firefox, however, Chrome's share has been climbing since its debut in 2008. Google's browser seized 10 percent of the market by the end of 2010 and increased to 13 percent in June 2011. Apple's Safari trailed with nearly 5 percent share during June, followed by Opera with nearly 2 percent.
Metric company StatCounter, however, reported considerably different browser market figures for the month of June, just like it did for May. According to the Irish company, Chrome was the most popular browser during June, with nearly 33 percent of the market. Microsoft's IE came in second with 32 percent, while Firefox grabbed 25 percent.
The drastic difference between Net Applications' and StatCounter's numbers is mainly due to the use of unique visitors rather than page views, Net Applications spokesman Vince Vizzaccaro explained last month. Vizzaccaro told PCMag last month that country-level weighting is likely the biggest factor, noting that Microsoft's IE has a very strong market share in the United States and China, which boast the largest bases of Internet users.
When it comes to mobile browsers, Net Applications reported that Apple's Safari continues to dominate the market thanks to the widely popular iPhone and iPad devices. Safari grabbed 66 percent of the mobile browser market during June, while Google's Android browser seized 19 percent, Opera Mini held 10 percent, BlackBerry accounted for 1.4 percent, and Symbian trailed with just 0.8 percent.
The latest numbers follow a month with exciting browser news. Mozilla showed off Junior, a version of its popular Firefox browser now with support for iOS. Mozilla's iOS browser is still in the planning stages for now, but the company said it will be far superior to the built-in Safari browser Apple packs on its iOS devices. Meanwhile, Google had its own exciting news at the Google I/O developer conference last week, releasing a version of its Chrome browser for iOS and a full version of chrome for Android.
