Firefox 3 Boosts Browser's Market Share Over 19%

Gains came mostly from users upgrading from Firefox 2, while only a small portion came at the expense of Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Firefox 3 has experienced rapid market share gains since its release in mid-June, helping to push the Mozilla browser's overall share to more than 19%, a Web metrics firm said Wednesday.

Since its release June 17, Firefox 3's worldwide usage share has soared to more than 4%, Net Applications reported. In the first hour of its release, the latest version of the open source browser grabbed 1% of the global market.

Firefox 3's gains came mostly from users upgrading from Firefox 2, the firm said. However, a small portion of the gains, 0.4%, came at the expense of Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

IE's market share fell to 73.01% in May to 73.75% at the end of June, Net Applications' numbers showed. Firefox overall increased its share during the same timeframe to 19.03% from 18.41%.

Since August 2007, IE's share has declined from 79%, while Firefox has risen over the last 10 months from 14.65%, according to Net Applications. During the same timeframe, Apple's Safari browser has increased its share to 6.31% from 4.71%. Much of that increase in usage is apparently due to soaring sales of Apple Mac computers, which ship with the browser.