Firefox 3.0 Ahead of IE 7 in Europe

StatCounter has reportedly released statistics that claim Mozilla’s Firefox 3.0 was the most frequently used Web browser in Europe last week, ahead of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 (IE 7).

The statistical analysis was allegedly based on tracking one billion page loads in week number 13 of 2009 in Europe alone, which is from Sunday the 22nd to Saturday the 28th of April.

Firefox 3.0 was activated by 35.05 percent of the European Web browser market and was only 0.51 percent ahead of IE 7, which stood at 34.54 percent usage. Upfront this may appear as a major achievement, but when all IE versions including IE 6.0 and IE 8.0 are considered collectively then the scale dips significantly in favour of IE’s. However it does reveal a significant trend that indicates Firefox may eventually move ahead of the pack in any category of consideration.

“The move is partly explained by a small switch from IE 7.0 usage to IE 8.0 but also by growing market share overall by Firefox 3.0,” said Aodhan Cullen, CEO and founder of StatCounter.

Indeed, the report indicates that IE 6.0 is third with 11.92 percent usage, Opera 9.6 is fourth at 4.88 percent, Firefox 2.0 is fifth with 3.1 percent, IE 8.0 is sixth with 2.37 percent, and Google (News - Alert) Chrome is seventh with 1.57 percent.

Now, let us look at the cumulative usage stats, which simply put means grouping all the IE’s together in one lot and the Firfoxes together in another lot and then comparing each lot with other Web browser groupings, IE’s are clear winners with 48.84 percent and are 9.99 percent ahead of Firefoxes that account for 38.85 percent usage. Interestingly, Google Chrome languished in fifth position at 1.83 percent.

“The data shows that Firefox is closing the gap and is now just 10% behind all IE versions in Europe,” said Cullen.

StatCounter is available as a free and paid solution that enables companies or even individuals to keep a count of the number of hits on their Websites, does not display or pop up advertisements, is quick to configure, and begins yielding data almost immediately.