Downloader: IE8 'officially' becomes most-used browser in the world

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

IE8 'officially' becomes most-used browser in the world

While there's no shortage of alternatives in web browsing, it looks like Internet Explorer 8 still has some pull out there. Net MarketShare, a company that monitors usage and market share of major web browsers, has released their January report.

According to the report, IE (all versions) holds a solid 62.12% of all browser usage. In addition to a 27% share on Windows, it has also taken a pretty big bite out of other operating systems as well. All these numbers translate to one thing: people are still using IE8...a lot of people. Sure, part of this has to do with the fact that it's the default browser for Windows and used by many large companies but it's still a pretty big deal.

The folks at the Windows software team are humbled, having only released version 8 of IE less than a year ago. They also reported that the popular browser was responsible for blocking over 80 million malware attacks. It will be interesting to see how long the streak will last given the rising popularity of browsers such as Firefox.

ed note: StatCounter currently pegs IE8's individual share at 22.1%, just ahead of Firefox 3.5 at 21.7%