Internet Explorer 8 launch fails to dent Firefox

The release of [URL="http://macnn.com/rd/126120==http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/03/19/ms.launching.ie8.today/"]Internet Explorer 8[/URL] hasn't had any significant impact on Firefox or any other competing browser, [URL="http://macnn.com/rd/126121==http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-daily-20090313-20090320"]data[/URL] collected by StatsCounter shows. While the final release of IE8 increased its market share slightly on launch day to 1.39 percent, Firefox 3.0 grew more quickly and reached 25.38 percent. The most significant losses were for Internet Explorer 7: the outgoing browser lost 0.4 percent of the total share.While the new Microsoft browser did gain more significant share by mid-Friday at about 1.56 percent, most of the added users came from users upgrading from IE7 and not converts from other browsers. Other competitors such as Chrome, Opera and Safari continued to see little change in their own share, which hasn't lately exceeded 2 percent.

StatsCounter chief Aodhan Cullen characterized the IE8 launch as "underwhelming" and compared it to the more eager demand for Firefox 3.0. While its share as a beta release was already higher than most competitors, the final release took usage from 7.8 percent to 18.9 percent in 3 days and has seen Firefox 3.0 [URL="http://macnn.com/rd/126122==http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/03/04/firefox.overtakes.ie6/"]eclipse IE6[/URL] just this month, becoming the first non-Microsoft browser to do so.

IE8 is one of Microsoft's most significant releases but exists partly to address gaps created by more recent rival browsers, such as improved support for true web standards, faster JavaScript, private browsing and support for Mac OS X Dashboard-style web clippings.