Europeans hatin’ on Internet Explorer

It’s official: Mozilla’s Firefox has overtaken Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) to become the numero uno browser in Europe.

That’s right – Firefox now claims 38.11% of European browser market share, compared to IE’s 37.52%.

“This is the first time that IE has been dethroned from the number one spot in a major territory,” explained StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen.

“This appears to be happening because Google’s Chrome is stealing share from Internet Explorer while Firefox is mainly maintaining its existing share.”

According to Cullen, Google’s Chrome remains in third place, but is steadily gaining market share in Europe and has increased to 14.58% compared to 5.06% in December last year.

“We are probably seeing the impact of the agreement between European Commission competition authorities and Microsoft, to offer EU users a choice and menu of browsers from March last,” he added.

Unsurprisingly, IE still maintains a clear browser share lead in (*ahem*) clueless North America, with 48.92% followed by Firefox (26.7%), Chrome (12.82%) and Safari (10.16%).