Microsoft’s Web browser may be experiencing a nice turnaround after years of nearly consistent decline.
According to the latest numbers from Net Applications, Internet Explorer now accounts for 53.8% of all Web browsing sessions around the world. That is the highest number for the Microsoft platform since September of 2011.
Of course, when you consider that Internet Explorer used to be the browser of choice for more than 90% of online users, it still shows that users crave variety when it comes to Web browsing, but it could be that at least some people are becoming disenchanted after switching, and are coming back on board.
Or it could be that the latest version of IE is actually working out better than previous versions. It’s also worth noting that Microsoft is currently deploying an aggressive advertising campaign to tout all the features of the latest Internet Explorer software, which could help increase the browser’s activity.
Meanwhile, both Firefox and Chrome lost support in the latest monthly numbers. Firefox now only accounts for 20.6% of online browsing sessions, the lowest number that Net Applications has reported since early 2009.
And Chrome also lost one percentage point from February to March, with an 18.6% market share.
It’s also worth pointing out that Net Applications changed the way it calculates Internet browser usage, by weighing its data from different countries in a new way. For example, it gets a huge amount of data about US usage from the CIA, but its data in China is more scattered, so it weighs those numbers from China more heavily so as to account for the potentially missing numbers.
