Internet Explorer 9 – will it win the browser wars?

Internet Explorer was never seen as the defacto choice for the discerning enthusiast user. But with the release of V9, reports have been constantly streaming in that the browser is proving popular among the audience who until now has never embraced it openly. It is slowly gaining favour with Web users and a post yesterday on Microsoft's Windows Blog website indicates that Net Applications latest browser statistics show IE9 has already earned 3.56 percent of the worldwide market share for March 2011.

For a browser that has only launched 2 weeks ago its impressive. Microsoft's Ryan Gavin said “It's obviously very early but we are pleased with the reception, The adoption rate of IE9 is about five times higher then what we saw for Internet Explorer 8 in the same time frame.”

The overall adoption rate for Internet Explorer isn't so rosy however, as it has dropped from 60 percent marketshare for this time last year to 56 percent today. Google Chrome is gaining users at an incredible rate. It has received praise for the speed and interface design and they have increased their user base from 6.13 percent in March 2010 to a staggering 11.57 percent today. When considering that in April 2009, it only had a 1.79 percent market share with Internet Explorer at 68 percent, it is a good indication how the market is changing.

Internet Explorer 9 might be the browser to change this for Microsoft. Reviews and reports are highlighting an overwhelmingly positive level of feedback for the newest design. Microsoft need this to be a success as competition is extremely high today. Firefox has a strong user base, although March was a bad month for them, as their market share shows a 22 percent adoption rate, which is down from 24.52 percent in March 2010. Apple Safari is at 6.61 percent, up from 4.65 percent for March 2010. Decent growth for the Cupertino software.

Microsoft's Ryan Gavin writes As we mentioned on Tuesday, all of our early downloads (through March 27) were user-initiated , with over 90% of the downloads coming from non-IE9 RC or Beta users, including over a quarter that came from Chrome and Firefox users.”

Will Internet Explorer 9 help to reverse the declining Microsoft browser fortunes? Microsoft have been fighting two corners this month, one is to highlight the benefits of the latest browser and the other is to stop people using Internet Explorer 6, which is insecure, dated and with a whopping 11.6 percent global share in March. IE6 is not so popular in American or the UK, in Asia it is still a highly used browser. China still show a 33.8 percent market share for IE6 which is a very concerning statistic indeed. Microsoft are taking the problem seriously and are trying hard to get people to update their browsing software.

“Friends don't let friends use Internet Explorer 6. And neither should acquaintances,” Microsoft states.

KitGuru says: We couldn't agree more.

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