Microsoft\'s market share bleeding with Internet Explorer hasn\'t stopped, it seems. Even with the release of version 8, which already sits at over 15% market share by itself, the company has seen a net loss in people using IE to browse the web. According to recent statistics, they have lost around 11.4% in total since March, with Firefox, Safari and Chrome all seeing increases during that same period.

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I'm starting to think Microsoft doesn't really care. They do minimal things to keep IE alive, but they know and we know there is a lot more than could be done. Its when the Firefox group gets large enough and threatens the Windows OS itself that Microsoft will truly grow concern.

I agree with tengeta and it's sad the way MS allowed their browsers to fade so badly. It's like they've been resolved to just barely keep up and tread water rather than even try to do anything really unique. Best thing MS can do now is just drop IE and broker a deal with Mozilla for "them" to provide the browsers for them. However, Mozilla should NOT relinquish control of their product to MS as they would destroy it in record time.

Microsoft is to the point where they think they just own the market in everything and think that people should just use their products just because it has the official Microsoft stamp. You would think for a company that large they would put some serious effort into things people use the most, Internet Explorer being one of them.

and once again Opera doesnt exist in a news report on web browsers........

:/

...well i personally think that IE8 is a great step forward.. and IE 7 was a big step up from IE6 .... then all browsers have problems...my firefox crash all the time...probably for the same reason IE crashes for alot of people...bad add-ons .

And safety? ..every day i remove viruses from people running firefox.
You only as safe as the ***** using the computer.
Browser safety and programmers can olny do so much...mostly its up to the user.

Driving a car into a brickwall in 200Km/h doesnt make the car unsafe, it makes the driver an *****.

Honestly, IE8 is not a bad product, it's just got way too much "me too" stuff in it, like it is an obvious attempt to catch up with the competitors, who actually LISTENED to users and put in features they wanted. MS suffered in the past from a certain amount of arrogance, feeling they had the best product and they knew best what customers SHOULD want, not what they actually wanted, and now they are playing catch-up. At least with IE8, they have trimmed some of the fat and moved away from the bloatware tendencies that seem to plague MS in general.

But truly, I think one reason IE8 has the market share it has now is that it is a forced upgrade for Windows users who aren't paying attention. Whenever I do a Windows update, IE8 is in the "critical updates" section, so anyone who does the "Express" updates will get IE8 without even knowing it. How they can get away with putting a browser, something totally optional, into "critical" status and forcing it on their consumers, is beyond me. I would expect that the competitors should be screaming foul at this, since MS has a prosecuted history of questionable practices when it comes to pushing IE in the market...

FireFox all the way!!!!!!

It needs market share to count :P