Google Chrome Dethrones Internet Explorer To Become Most Popular Browser

Image courtesy of Krossbow

If the technology world was a high school hallway, Google Chrome would be shoving past former prom queen Internet Explorer while wrinkling its nose like it smells something particularly offensive. That’s because Chrome is now the most popular browser, as it recently took home a larger share of the market than its rival for the first time.

Google Chrome snagged a 41.6% share of all desktop browser traffic in April, as tallied by web tracker Net Market Share, which is up from 39% in March (via CNET).

In that same month, Internet Explorer’s chunk of the market dropped to 41.3%, down from 43.4% percent. This is the first time Chrome has surged ahead of its rival for the top spot, in terms of Net Market Share.

Firefox follows far behind at third with 9.7%, then comes Safari with 4.9%, and Opera commanding a scant 1.89% share.

It’s particularly impressive when considering that IE comes bundled on all Windows machines, while most folks who want to use Google Chrome have to download and install it on their devices.

Again, this is just one group’s calculation of who’s on top — according to another web tracker called StatCounter, Chrome has been in the lead since 2012, with Firefox second, and IE third.

Internet Explorer’s share of the market pie will inevitably decrease as Microsoft keeps pushing users to switch to its new browser, Edge. Though there are still plenty of people using Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10, Microsoft no longer offers support for those products.

Google Chrome sneaks past Internet Explorer to become top browser [CNET]

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