Browser Wars

There is a war going on out there…and we are the spoils. The battle rages with weapons designed to build, not destroy…build a loyal following that is. The war is for supremacy in the Internet browser world. First some history…way back in the days of yore there was an earlier browser war. Microsoft Internet Explore and Netscape battled it out in the first browser war. Explore crushed Netscape, but the victory resulted in a federal lawsuit filed against Microsoft that seriously tarnished its image. For years after the collapse of Netscape Internet Explorer reigned unchallenged, only Apple’s Safari held any sizable share of the Internet users. Then in 2004 Morzilla’s released its Open Source browser called FireFox. FireFox quickly gained a small but dedicated following (including me). That small following has now increased to “mid-size” at the expense of Internet Explore. And now a new combatant has joined the war…it is named Chrome. In 2008 Internet search giant Google released Chrome hoping its vast financial resources would make it an instant challenger to Explorer and especially Firefox. It didn’t…but Chrome is on its way up also.

As we begin 2010 here are the numbers (user percentages) in the browser battles:

Internet Explorer - 62.6%
FireFox - 24.6%
Chrome - 4.6%
Safari - 4.4%
Other - 3.6%