Firefox Usage Slips, Explorer and Safari Make Gains

by , 1:40 PM EDT, August 12th, 2005

NetApplications, which measures and monitors Web site traffic, on Friday reported its monthly browser market share numbers for July. Firefox, which debuted earlier this year with large gains against Microsoft Internet Explorer, saw its usage slip from 8.71% of users in June to 8.07% in July. Internet Explorer went from 86.56% in June to 87.2% in July while Safari held steady in third place with 2.13%, a small growth from the previous month.

Rounding out the rest of the list, Netscape captured 1.5% of Internet usage, Mozille 0.52% and Opera 0.49%. Other browsers accounted for 0.09% of Web traffic.

"Mozilla recently created a for-profit division just in time to see its FireFox browser drop .7% in 30 days," Dan Shapero, NetApplications' Chief Operating Officer, said in a statement. "At 8.07%, Firefox is still flirting with mass appeal, so August should be an interesting and telling month."