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Internet Explorer usage declines in India
Friday, 26 March 2010, 22:04 IST |
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New Delhi: The usage of Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser has been declining throughout the world and the same response is noted in India as well. This was confirmed by the latest report from Irish metrics firm StatCounter, which says that IE has lost almost 20 percent market share in India in the past two years as other browser become stronger.
After recent attacks on the IE, where many loopholes in the browser were easily used by Cybercriminals, many European countries have forced to mandate a ballot screen in the Windows 7 operating system. This screen offers a choice to customers to choose their own browser from Mozilla's Firefox, Google's Chrome, Apple's Safari, Opera and others, according to Economic Times.
Worldwide IE's market share has suddenly started dipping and rival's Chrome and Firefox's rising from this month post the EU regulation. Worldwide IE has a market share of about 55 percent followed by Firefox's 31 percent, Chrome at seven percent and Safari at about four percent currently.
According to StatCounter, the percentage of systems running the browser dropped in several countries since March 1. India does not have any such mandate but still the erosion in market share has been steady. Experts also cite the decline to slow connectivity in a country already plagued by slow internet speed. Of the 71 million internet users in India, just eight million have a broadband connection.
Meanwhile, in developed markets like Germany, Firefox has already beaten IE while in France it has lost close to six percent to Firefox and Google's Chrome since January this year. Chrome and Opera are upbeat about the change. "We believe user choice is important because that's what stimulates innovation," said Vinay Goel, Products Head, Google India to Economic Times. Commenting on the introduction of browser ballot in European market he said, "Google has designed Chrome in a way that each tab acts as a standalone browser. So if you have lots of tabs open at once, and one crashes, they don't all go down," he added.
