Chrome, Safari gaining on Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer users are switching to Chrome or Safari rather than upgrading to IE9, according to numbers gathered by Net Applications. Although IE9 is gaining share among Windows 7 users, IE continues to lose popularity overall. Microsoft's overall browser market share dropped from 60.35 percent in November 2010 to 54.39 percent in September this year — 50 percent is nothing to scoff at, but this in on track to lose about six percent by November 2011. This steady decline was interrupted by a slight uptick of 0.87 percent at the launch of IE9 in February, only to resume giving up ground to Chrome and Safari for the rest of the year. Of course, Microsoft's latest browser requires Windows 7 and 50 percent of PCs are still running XP, so Microsoft might not be able to turn these numbers around until Windows 7 becomes the dominant OS.