Internet Explorer's share of the browser market fell below 70% in November
Not coincidentally, Mozilla's Firefox browser has also surpassed 20 percent market share for the first time. — And Google certainly isn't reluctant to kick Microsoft while it's down, as it now automatically recommends …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is a milestone in a slow erosion that had been visible for years: even after Microsoft pushed out 100 million IE 7 installs, its share kept sliding, and Firefox had been climbing steadily since at least late 2005, when Mozilla's browser was already moving farther ahead of the pack. Crossing below 70% matters because IE's dominance was the default distribution channel for the web itself — and the same month, Firefox crossed 20% for the first time while Google began automatically recommending alternative browsers to users.
First-order effects
- Microsoft loses the psychological anchor of a two-thirds browser monopoly: below 70%, IE is no longer the near-universal default, and every percentage point now flows disproportionately to Firefox and other rivals.
- Google's automatic browser recommendations put a major distribution channel behind IE's competitors, directly accelerating switching among mainstream users rather than just enthusiasts.
Second-order effects
- Web developers gain license to target standards-compliant browsers first, reducing the lock-in value of IE-only quirks and making further defection cheaper for sites and users alike.
- Mozilla's revenue and negotiating leverage grow with share, funding faster release cycles that keep pressure on Microsoft; Google's promotion of rivals also signals how an incumbent gatekeeper's own partners can be turned against it.
Third-order effects
- The browser becomes a contested platform rather than a bundled utility — a structural shift toward contestable gatekeeping of the web, where default placement must be won continuously instead of inherited from the OS.
- If the pattern holds, Microsoft's eventual answer is replacement rather than repair: the long arc runs from IE's decline through its partial recovery around 2012 to Edge displacing Firefox as the number-two desktop browser by 2020 — evidence that browser leadership is cyclical once defaults are contestable.
The trend: This is one data point in the decade-long unbundling of the browser from the operating system, which turned web access from a Microsoft-guaranteed default into a market that must be re-won with every release.