GOOGLE CHROME - Runner in UK

 With the speed and a nationwide advertising campaign credited for rise in popularity, Google Chrome has overtaken Firefox to become the UK's second most popular web browser. According to Statcounter web metrics, Chrome has captured 22% of UK users last month. Microsoft's Internet Explorer still remains the most popular browser for UK users with 45%. Apple's Safari is UK number four, with a 9% share. Chrome sources said speed as an essential part of its progress, with minimal design and the way it handles security. Microsoft's IE has fallen heavily, to 43%, with warnings about security vulnerabilities whereas Google with a 20.65% market is making good progress with its announcement of Chromebook laptop based on its browser.

CHROME vs FIREFOX

          

Google Chrome gained significant usage share last month, and it again trounced Firefox. By the end of April Chrome accounted for 6.7% of the browsers that surfed to the sites monitored by Calif.-based Net Applications for its clients. Chrome boosted its share by 0.6 percentage points, by far the largest increase of any browser for the month, and the second-highest increase since Google launched the application in September 2008. Internet Explorer dropped 0.7 percentage points to finish the month at 59.95%, the first time that IE has fallen under the 60% mark.

 

Mozilla Firefox, on the other hand, was up last month, albeit by only 0.07 percentage points to 24.6%. Once considered a lock to hit and then move beyond the 25% bar, Firefox has yet to reach the milestone. Mozilla's bright spot was that it has convinced nearly two-thirds of its users to upgrade to the newest Firefox, Version 3.6, which launched in January. By the end of April, 62.3% of all Firefox users were running the newest edition, while 23.6% ran 2009's Firefox 3.5 and 11.2% ran the now-unsupported Firefox 3.0.

Microsoft's newest browser, IE8, also showed strong gains last month as its market share grew by one percentage point to 24.7%; when its "compatibility view" is included, IE8 accounted for 27.6% of all browsers. Apple Inc’s Safari remained at 4.7%. Meanwhile, Opera Software's eponymous desktop browser lost share to end the month at 2.3%