SEO news - Firefox become Europes top browser

12 January 2011

SEO specialists and web designers take note – the future of the web is not set.

In December 2010, Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox web browser beat Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer to the top spot as Europe's favourite browser for the first time.

Market research firm StatCounter say that during that month Firefox held 38.1 percent of the European market, while Internet Explorer garnered 37.5 percent.

Google Inc.'s Chrome had 14.6 percent usage – a rise of over nine percent from the equivalent period.

StatCounter's CEO, Aodhan Cullen, explained that this dethroning of the Microsoft web browser is not necessarily indicative of a rise in Firefox's popularity on the internet, more that "Google's Chrome is stealing share from Internet Explorer".

However, in North America, Internet Explorer is still King – being utilised by almost half of all web users at 49.8 percent of the market, while Firefox languishes behind with just 26.7 percent and Chrome 12.8 percent.

Cullen said that Europe was "probably seeing the impact of the agreement between European Commission competition authorities and Microsoft, to offer EU users a choice and menu of browsers from March last year".

Head of IT at Fuse, Mike Page, said, "Firefox provides lots of really cool plug-ins which SEO specialists and web designers may find useful. We're not at all surprised that Mozilla's browser is gaining market share."