The Members Forum

Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser again lost usage share last month to rivals Google and Apple, posting its largest decline since March, a Web analytics firm said Wednesday.

Usage share of Internet Explorer 6 (IE6), the nine-year-old browser even Microsoft wants to kill, fell by 1.3 percentage points during November, its biggest drop in eight months, to lead the decline.

According to Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based Net Applications, IE's total share fell by nine-tenths of a percentage point to 58.3%, the lowest level ever and the fifth month in a row that it lost ground.

Meanwhile, Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari made the sharpest gains, boosting their shares to 9.3% and 5.6%, respectively, both records.

But Microsoft preferred to talk about the silver lining -- the fall of IE6 to 13.7% of all browsers used worldwide last month -- rather than the continued weakening of its browser's total share.

"What we're trying to do is get people off IE6," said Roger Capriotti, the director of product marketing for IE, in an interview Tuesday. "We're happy with the [overall] numbers for this month, and we'll continue to focus [on getting people] on a modern browser, which is IE8 and then IE9."

Computerworld has the details HERE!