Chrome Pulls Further Ahead of Firefox in Market Share Metrics

The Firefox browser has been much in the news this week, as version 29--which lifts a few interface enhancements from Google's Chrome browser--is rolling out. During the month of April, though, Chrome continued to gain market share relative to Firefox. Chrome grabbed 17.9 percent of all desktop browser traffic accounted for by Net Applications in April. That number rose from 17.5 percent in March, which was the first month that Chrome pulled ahead of Firefox. Firefox's market share dropped to 17 percent last month from 17.2 percent in March.

For months now, Google has been pursuing a strategy that allows users of the Chrome browser to easily find and run "packaged apps" just like sophisticated web apps that users of Chrome OS are used to running. Chrome packaged apps are now available in the Chrome Web Store.  We've covered the fact that this is emerging as a big differentiator for Google's browser.

After all the concesions that Microsoft has had to make with its Internet Explorer browser, and in spite of the fact that it is the target of more security problems than other browsers, it remains king of the hill in terms of market share. Internet Explorer had 57.8 percent share in April, according to Net Applications. A year ago, its share was at 55 percent.

Here's a look at Net Applications complete desktop browser share data for the month of April: