WebProNews

Mozilla Firefox 3 surpassed Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 for the first time in February, according to monthly data from StatCounter.

Internet Explorer 7 continues to lead worldwide with 41 percent market share but Firefox 3 is now in second place with 24 percent market share.

"Since its launch less than a year ago, Firefox 3 has attained nearly one quarter of the global market," said Aodhan Cullen, CEO and founder, StatCounter. "IE 7 is consistently holding about 40% of the global market but IE 6 has fallen from 28% in July last to 22% in February this year."

"The growth in usage of Firefox 3 can be partly attributed to users upgrading to the new version - Firefox 2 market share has fallen from 16% to 3% in the period."

Microsoft's combined IE 7 and IE 6 market share has dipped from 68 percent in July last year to 63 percent now. IE 8 has just over 1 percent of the market. Firefox 3 and 2 has grown from 25 percent in July of last year to 27 percent in February '09. "The overall trend is what is interesting here," said Cullen.