In the Browser Game, Open Source Players Continue to Define the Pace

by Sam Dean - Dec. 15, 2010Comments (1)

As 2010 draws to a close, one of the biggest open source stories of the year continues to be the ongoing decline in market share of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, as Google Chrome and Firefox take share from it. According to new data from Net Applications, Internet Explorer, which once had over 80 percent share among browsers, dropped to 58.44 percent share in the month of November, compared to over 63 percent share at the same time last year. Meanwhile, Google Chrome and Firefox have healthy share in one of the most vital application spaces.

According to Net Applications' data, Chrome now has 9.26 percent share, which is remarkable given how young Google's browser is. Firefox has 22.76 percent share, and the browser is almost set to arrive in a much speedier and feature-rich version 4 (if you're not using the beta, it's worth using).

At the same time that Firefox is set to arrive in a robust new version, Microsoft is preparing its version 9 of Internet Explorer for the first quarter, but there are no signs that the company can reverse the decline in market share that open source browsers are causing. The really important news is that these shifts in market share aren't just happening due to any anti-Microsoft leanings in the market, but because the open source browsers are simply better.

Chrome OS and Firefox both allow users to customize their experience with many useful extensions, and are more customizable in general than Internet Explorer is. The Chrome browser may get a big boost from the arrival of Google's Chrome OS early next year, which uses the browser's interface. (GigaOM has taken the first Chrome OS-based notebook for a test spin.)

Microsoft has been forced by both the Justice Department in the U.S. and the European Commission to avoid tying its browser too closely to the Windows operating system, but Google may have an opportunity to create such ties in an unfettered way as it commands both a computer-centric OS and a popular browser. Look for Chrome to continue to grab substantial share next year, and it's definitely good news that open source browsers are defining innovation in the browser arena.