Safari Inches Up in April, Explorer Drops

by , 1:50 PM EDT, May 1st, 2007

After a minor dip in March, Safari climbed slightly in April to gain a little bit more of the Web browser market. Firefox also gained more traction in March while Internet Explorer continued on its steady decline.

Safari managed to grab 4.59 percent of the Web browser market in April, according to data from Market Share. That is a small increase from March's 4.51 percent, and still below February's 4.85 percent. The last time Safari lost any market share was in August 2006.

Firefox continued its upward climb from 15.01 percent to 15.40 percent - most likely at the expense of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer is a Windows-only application, so users that are unhappy with it are more likely to be switching to Firefox. Versions of Firefox are available for both Mac OS X and Windows, however, so it does attract users from both platforms.

The Microsoft Web browser has been dropping steadily for eight months, and did not show any sign of recovering even after the release of Windows Vista. For April, it held 78.03 percent of the market, down from 78.57 percent in March.

Although tracking Web browser statistics isn't a sure fire way to determine how many users there are for a specific computer platform, the overall trends can help give an idea of platform popularity. The trend we are seeing now seems to indicate that more computer users are starting to show an interest in the Mac.