Internet monitoring firm Pingdom on Monday released a new report on global Web browser share by browser version. The company found Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9 to be the most popular browser in North America with a 21.2% share, and it was closely followed by Google Chrome 18 at 20.2%. Internet Explorer, however, featured a combined total of 40.4% of the North American browser market. Globally, Pingdom found that Chrome 18 is the most popular browser with a 25.6% share, leading Firefox 11 with 15.8% and Internet Explorer 9 and 8 with 15.7% and 14.6%, respectively. Microsoft’s browser has the largest worldwide market share when all versions are combined, followed by Chrome and then Firefox.

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Russian university student Sergey Glazunov was able to hack into a secure Windows 7 machine using a remote code execution exploit in Google’s Chrome web browser in five minutes, ZDNet reported Wednesday. The exploit was found during CanSecWest’s Pwnium hacker contest, a competition similar to the popular Pwn2Own contest. Google offered a total of $1 million dollar in prize money to hackers who could exploit the company’s Chrome web browser. Glazunov was rewarded $60,000 for his exploit, which found a way around Chrome’s sandbox using vulnerabilities in the extension system. “It didn’t break out of the sandbox [but] it avoided the sandbox,” said Justin Schuh, a member of the Chrome security team. “It was an impressive exploit. It required a deep understanding of how Chrome works. This is not a trivial thing to do.” At Pwn2Own, the VUPEN team was able to hack all four major browsers — Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox — with Chrome, which was hacked within five minutes, being the first to fall. This is the first time in four years at the competition that Google’s web browser has been hacked. The company is already working on an update that will fix the vulnerabilities uncovered at Pwnium and Pwn2Own.

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Mozilla announced on Monday that it will release a Metro-specific version of Firefox for Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 platform. The browser will require “a new Firefox front end and system integration points” and be based on the Gecko layout engine. “The feature goal here is a new Gecko-based browser built for and integrated with the Metro environment,” said the company’s planning document. “Firefox on Metro, like all other Metro apps will be full screen, focused on touch interactions, and connected to the rest of the Metro environment through Windows 8 contracts.” The company may also produce a live tile that would display updates on the home screen. Mozilla hopes to unveil its new browser in the second quarter of 2012.

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Mozilla released Firefox 9 on Tuesday, the latest version of its popular web browser. Firefox 9 adds several enhancements, but perhaps the most notable is its improved JavaScript engine that reportedly offers up to a 30% performance boost (in Kraken and V8 benchmarks) on Javascript-heavy sites. The browser also adds OS X Lion optimizations that should improve two-finger swipe navigation and theme support. Other features include support for font-stretch, improved support for text-overflow, improved support for HTML5, MathML and CSS, and stability fixes. Firefox 9 is available for free now and builds are available for Mac, Linux and Windows.

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Mozilla announced Tuesday that it has reached an agreement with Google in which Google Search will remain the default search engine in Firefox for the next three years. “Mozilla has been a valuable partner to Google over the years and we look forward to continuing this great partnership in the years to come,” said Google’s senior vice president of search, Alan Eustace. While terms of the agreement remain confidential, Mozilla reported in October that its partnership with Google helped the company achieve a large portion of the $123 million in revenue in reported last year, CNET said.

Read [Mozilla] Read [CNET]

Google’s Chrome web browser surpassed Mozilla’s Firefox in global browser market share for the first time ever in November. Research firm StatCounter found that Chrome’s market share during the month was 25.69%, up 4.66% from last November, and that Firefox’s share was a hair lower at 25.33% during the month. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer maintained its lead with 40.63%. ”Our stats measure actual browser usage, not downloads, so while Chrome has been highly effective in ensuring downloads our stats show that people are actually using it to access the web also,” StatCounter CEO Aodjan Cullen said. Internet Explorer remains the top browser in the United States with a 50.66% share. Firefox is the second most popular browser in the U.S. with a 20.09% share, down from 26.75% in November last year, and Chrome is the third most popular browser with a 17.3% share, up from 10.89% last year. Net Applications, another research firm, published similar results on Thursday. By its numbers, Internet Explorer had a 52.64% share in November, followed by Firefox (22.14%), Chrome (18.18%) and Safari (5%). StatCounter’s full press release follows after the break. 

Chrome Overtakes Firefox Globally for First Time

Free web analytics company reports that Internet Explorer still leads despite falling market share

Boston, USA; Dublin, Ireland; Thursday, 1st December, 2011: Google’s browser Chrome overtook Firefox for the first time globally on a monthly basis in November, according to StatCounter, the free website analytics company. The firm’s research arm StatCounter Global Statsreports that Chrome took 25.69% of the worldwide market (up from 4.66% in November 2009) compared to Firefox’s 25.23%. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still maintains a strong lead globally with 40.63%.

“We can look forward to a fascinating battle between Microsoft and Google as the pace of growth of Chrome suggests that it will become a real rival to Internet Explorer globally,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “Our stats measure actual browser usage, not downloads, so while Chrome has been highly effective in ensuring downloads our stats show that people are actually using it to access the web also.”

In the US Internet Explorer continues to perform strongly and is maintaining market share at 50.66%, up slightly from 50.24% year on year. Firefox retains second place on 20.09%, down from 26.75%. Chrome is up to 17.3% from 10.89%. Safari is on 10.76% from 10.71%.

In the UK, Internet Explorer also leads the market with 42.82%. Chrome is on 24.82%, having overtaken Firefox (20.56%) in July. (For other individual country or regional analysis see StatCounter Global Stats).

StatCounter Global Stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample exceeding 15 billion page views per month (4 billion from the US) from the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.

As well as free web research, StatCounter (http://statcounter.com/) provides free website traffic analysis. This allows website owners, developers and bloggers to capture valuable intelligence on their site in real time including number of visitors, visitors by country/region, search terms, popular pages, download stats, exit links and other data.

In September StatCounter announced its new website with added features.

Read [Net Applications]

Mozilla’s latest version of it’s popular Firefox web browser saw rapid adoption following its release last week. Firefox 8, the fifth major release of the Mozilla browser so far this year, became available for download on November 9th. Within one day, the new iteration had already grown to account for 7% of all Firefox traffic across Chitika’s ad network, the company reported on Tuesday. By the end of the browser’s first week of availability, Firefox 8 claimed 35% of all Firefox traffic.

“This is yet another testament to Mozilla’s recently adopted rapid release process, particularly made evident by the fact that first seven versions of the browser took seven years to release,” Chitika’s Gabe Donnini wrote on the company’s blog. “Firefox 8 is a well-polished version which builds off of the functionality offered by its predecessors, and brings a whole slew of new features to the table.”

As of the end of October, Firefox was the second most popular web browser in the world according to data from Net Applications, claiming 22.52% of all web traffic. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer remained the world’s top browser with a 52.63% share.

A new research report from Chitika Insights suggests Chrome, Firefox and Safari are eating away at Microsoft’s dominant share of the web browser market. Internet Explorer’s overall share dropped from 56% in July to 54% in August while Firefox’s market share increased from 19% to 20% and Safari’s share grew one point to 9%. Between July 2010 and July 2011, however, Microsoft’s browser share remained steady at 56%. Google’s Chrome web browser saw its share increase from 9% to 16% year-over-year at the expense of Firefox and Safari, which lost 5% and 1% of the market, respectively. Chitika said it expects Firefox’s share to increase as Mozilla continues to release frequent updates to its web browser. In addition, Internet Explorer’s share will “stabilize from its recent losses” when Microsoft releases Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10.

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Mozilla on Tuesday pushed out a new version of its popular Firefox web browser for Windows and Mac computers. Mozilla released Firefox 6 on August 16th, just over one month ago, and version 7 is already upon us, reaffirming Mozilla’s commitment to the world’s second most popular web browser. Firefox 7 brings with it a host of changes, the most notable of which is perhaps “drastically improved memory handling” and other speed related improvements. As of August, Net Applications shows Firefox’s global browser share as 22.57%, behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (55.31%) and ahead of Chrome (15.51%) Safari (4.64%) and the Opera browser (1.68%). Firefox 7 is available for download immediately from Mozilla’s website, which is linked below.

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Users are flocking towards Mozilla’s latest Firefox 6 browser according to new data from Chitika Insights, the research arm of ad network Chitika. The company watched Firefox 6 adoption across its network in the United States and Canada from the browser’s debut on August 16th until August 22nd. Chitika Insights said that in just one week, Firefox 6 had already garnered 8% of the company’s traffic. In addition, Firefox 6 now represents 45% of all Firefox traffic, although the firm says the speed of growth has slowed since early adopters have already upgraded.

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Android may be an open source operating system, but it’s not as open as other platforms according to a new research report from VisionMobile. The research firm compared Android, Eclipse, Firefox, the Linux kernel, MeeGo, Qt and Symbian and found that, of those open source environments, Android was the least “open.” According to the report’s “open governance index,” which scored each environment on how open it is, Android scored a 23%. It was far below the others; Eclipse scored the best with an 84% open governance index and no other platform scored less than a 58%, ArsTechnica said. Google’s Android compatibility chief Dan Morrill likely swayed the opinion on Android a bit when he said Google was using compatibility “as a club to make [phone maker's] do things we want,” and the report cites that quote specifically. However, VisionMobile also backs up its findings with a statement that can be read in full after the break.

Visibility to the roadmap is limited, as there is no Android roadmap publicly available. In fact, development of the Android private branch and the roadmap is controlled by Google, with little input from external parties or the Open Handset Alliance members,” the report says. “When launched, the Open Handset Alliance served the purpose of a public industry endorsement for Android. Today, however, the OHA serves little purpose besides a stamp of approval for OHA members; there is no formal legal entity, no communication processes for members nor frequent member meetings.

[Via Gizmodo]

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According to the analytics firm StatCounter, Google’s Chrome web browser now has a 20.7% grip of the web browser market — seven times more than it had just two years ago. The boost comes at the cost of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser, which now has less than a 50% hold on the market. Mozilla’s Firefox web browser has a 28% share of the browser market, down from 30% two years ago, and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer share fell to 44% from 59% two years ago. According to Reuters, StatCounter gathers its data from more than 3 million websites with more than 15 billion page views.

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Mozilla on Tuesday finally issued the new public release version of its wildly popular Web browser, Firefox. Version 5 of Firefox wasn’t met with quite the same fanfare as Firefox 4, but the update is a major one nonetheless. Mozilla bills its new browser as being faster than ever with “even more awesomeness,” and we can’t say we disagree. Firefox 5 has received massive improvements aimed at providing speedier performance, and the UI has been redesigned and improved as well. Firefox’s “do not track” feature also works across mobile and desktop platforms now, and Mozilla has improved support for MathML, HTML 5, XHR, and SMIL as well. Other areas targeted by the new build include CSS animation and JavaScript support, and Mozilla has promised more frequent updates so more new features shouldn’t be far off. According to Net Applications, Mozilla’s Firefox browser was used by 21.71% of the global market in May, second only to Internet Explorer’s 54.27% share. Chrome, Safari and Opera rounded out the top-5 with 12.52%, 7.28% and 2.03%, respectively.

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Flock, the social web browser that was purchased by Zynga earlier this year, has announced that it is shutting down. The team will instead focus on helping Zynga build socially connected games across multiple platforms. If you’re a Flock user, the good news is that you’ll be able to continue to use the product for a few more days as you transition to a new browser. Flock says that, after April 26th, key features will no longer be available, and it also warned that security will falter without future software updates or upgrades. The team recommends that current Flock users switch to Firefox or Chrome. Hit the jump for instructions on how to migrate your favorites and other features to a new browser.

[Via AllThingsD]

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