Firefox Jumps 10 Percent Bar

Firefox has broken the 10 percent market share barrier, a Web analytics company said this week, by jumping a quarter percentage point from February to March.

The open-source browser now owns 10.05 of the global usage market, Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based NetApplications said in its March data. February's Firefox share was 9.75 percent.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer, meanwhile, slipped by nearly the same amount that Firefox rose, falling from 85.03 percent in February to 84.7 percent in March. A year ago, IE held down 88 percent of the browser field.

Apple's Safari browser, the long-time third-place program by NetApplications' stats, climbed slightly, from 3.13 percent during February to 3.19 percent in March.

Many analysts have called the 10-percent mark an important milestone for the Mozilla Corp. browser, although reaching it took longer than anticipated; Mozilla itself had sent 2005 as the goal.NetApplications' other findings include a continued weak showing by the Norwegian browser, Opera, which controls just 0.53 percent of the market; and the very small take-up of IE 7 Beta 2 Preview, which is being used by only 0.26 percent of surfers.

The complete table of March's browser numbers can be viewed on the NetApplications' MarketShare site.