Microsoft's IE reclaims lost ground in browser battle
Internet Explorer has reversed a slide in usage, at least for now. — (Credit: data by Net Applications; chart by Stephen Shankland/CNET) — Microsoft's Internet Explorer regained some of the browser usage it's lost in recent years …
Context & Ripple Effects
The reversal ends a slide that coverage has tracked for half a decade: [[a:1177358|100 million IE 7 installs still weren't enough to stop Microsoft's browser losing ground back in 2007]], and by late 2008 IE's share had fallen below 70% as Firefox climbed. The erosion continued through 2009 — users were even downgrading from IE8 back to IE7 while Windows 7 launches coincided with surges for Firefox and Chrome, and Google's browser overtook Safari for third place by January 2010.
That makes the Net Applications data reported here notable less for its magnitude than for its direction: after years of one-way traffic, Microsoft's usage share ticked up rather than down. The pickup was widely picked up — Ars Technica, PC World, VentureBeat, BGR and BetaNews all ran the same story on or about April 2, 2012, suggesting the industry reads it as a genuine inflection point rather than statistical noise.
First-order effects
- Microsoft's long-running browser-erosion problem is interrupted: every future Net Applications reading now gets measured against a rising baseline instead of a falling one, changing how IE9-era progress is judged.
- Firefox and Chrome lose their easiest talking point — 'IE is bleeding' — just as both were positioning continued IE decline as inevitable.
Second-order effects
- Rival browser makers are pushed to compete on product cadence rather than on Microsoft's inertia, since the passive-decay assumption no longer does their marketing for them.
- Microsoft's ability to move usage via its Windows installed base is validated, raising the stakes for how default-browser placement is handled in upcoming Windows releases.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the browser market settles into a durable multi-player contest where share swings with OS upgrade cycles rather than trending permanently against the incumbent — making measurement methodology itself a recurring battleground between Net Applications-style panels and log-based counters.
The trend: Browser market share is shifting from one-directional incumbent decay toward cyclical swings driven by Windows upgrade waves and release cadence.