Google Chrome knocks Internet Explorer off the top spot as the world's favourite web browser

It was not suprising to learn that Google's Chrome has overtaken Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the most widely used web browser in the world, according to statistics released today.

Data from web analytics service StatCounter showed that for the week of May 14-20 Chrome has averaged a higher share of web traffic for a full seven-day stretch.

Statcounter's data showed Chrome in the lead in the field of five major web browsers, with 32.76 per cent share of users, while IE dipped to 31.94 per cent.

The change in web browsing habits represents a remarkable decline for Internet Explorer, which four years ago boasted a market share of nearly 70 per cent.

While it is not the first time that Chrome has overtaken IE, it is the first time that Google's browser has held its position for an entire week - though still by less than a percentage point.

And while Chrome is leading the browser market worldwide, it is still lagging Microsoft's product significantly in the U.S. and the UK.

This is supported by www.pingdom.com for April 1-22, 2012. It appears that the days when IE completely dominated the browser landscape are long gone. Microsoft’s browser still has a big chunk of the market, but much less so in some regions than others. It has lost its lead in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America, but remains dominant in North America and Oceania (consisting primarily of Australia).

As you can see by this map, the “big three” are no doubt IE, Firefox and Chrome. Opera and Safari are both out of the top three in all world regions.

An interesting observation is that IE, Chrome and Firefox each top two regions.

One could also argue that open source has won the browser wars. Firefox and Chrome together make up a majority part in every region.

Read more from the Daily Mail and Royal Pingdom.