News

Apple's Safari 5 Gains Ground on IE 8

• By Chris Paoli
• 08/02/2011

The browser wars took a new turn as Apple's Safari 5 browser gained ground in a July survey.

A report from Web analytics group Net Applications shows Apple's Safari Web browser has jumped 8.1 percent in market share for the month of July -- the largest one-month increase for that browser. Safari in fact has surpassed Mozilla's browser and version 9 of Internet Explorer to hold second place. Net Applications reported Safari 5 use at 11.2 percent, Internet Explorer 9 use at 11.0 percent, while Firefox 5 took fourth place at 9.0 percent use.

Internet Explorer 8 still leads the pack, with a 33.5 percent market share. Some IE 8 users may be stuck from upgrading, since IE 9 only runs on Windows Vista and Windows 7 OSes. Net Applications analysts believe that this short-term limitation will ultimately play off for Microsoft as Windows XP use declines.

"So what are the usage share ramifications for this decision? Microsoft seems willing to sacrifice usage share in the short term in order to leapfrog the competition in the long run by applying all their resources to modern versions of Windows," Net Applications explained, in a released statement. "Although Windows XP currently has 54% of global usage share, Windows 7 usage share is following a strong, fairly linear path upwards and Windows versions from Vista forward should have a majority share within a couple years."

IE 9 still has a long way to go to meet those expectations. The browser finished the month of July in fifth place among Windows 7 users, with a market share of 3.6 percent. Meanwhile, IE 8 still leads over its younger sibling, with more than half of all Windows 7 users choosing it for their Internet browser.

Stats courtesy of Net Applications.