Google Chrome

There is more choice than ever when it comes to browsers today. This is a fantastic thing and we believe that choice makes the web better for all of us.

We build IE for customers who use Windows. IE9 is the browser designed to give Windows 7 customers the fastest, safest, and most private browsing experience – putting the focus on the thing that matters most – your favorite sites.

If you haven’t had a look at IE recently and are ready for change, here are some reasons we think IE9 might be the browser for you.

On Friday, we mentioned that things were looking up for developers interested in building the latest set of web experiences for a modern browser like IE9. The good news for developers is that with IE9 at almost 35% share on Windows 7 in the US near the close of October - now 65% of all Windows 7 users in the US have a modern browser!

There certainly appears to be more than a little enthusiasm for browser numbers these days, and it’s great to see early adopters adopting the latest browsers across the industry. With Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4.0, and Chrome 10 all hitting their final releases recently, drawing instant comparisons around downloads or initial usage is a natural temptation, but unfortunately you can’t do it quite yet. Here’s why.

Last month, we saw share of both Internet Explorer 8 and 9 grow, and we’re pleased to see that momentum continue in February with the availability of the IE9 Release Candidate.  Since its release on February 10^th, the IE9 RC has already been downloaded over 11 million times.  Together with the IE9 Beta, IE9 has been downloaded over 36 million times since its initial availability on September 15, 2010.

Every month, the IE team gets a bunch of questions asking about our take on market share trends and Internet Explorer.  This month, I connected with Scott Armstrong to answer some of these.  Check out our conversation below (or at this link).

A common slip-up we find on some of the apps that we review is the use of illegible fonts, items too close to each other or items too small to be easy to touch. In the first case the outcome is obvious, the user will not be able to read the text or it will be very difficult to. In the second and third case, the result will be hitting the wrong target.

Last month, we saw coverage about Internet Explorer posting a worldwide gain in usage share. That encouraging news continues today with Net Applications’ release of their July usage share numbers. Net Applications reports overall Internet Explorer share grew 0.42% worldwide in July, while Firefox lost 0.90% share and Chrome dipped 0.08% in share.

When customers sit down to browse the web, they have more choice than ever about the browser they’ll use. Here in the Internet Explorer team, we look at usage share as one of several results that come from developers targeting, partners supporting, and customer preferring the latest version of Internet Explorer. Last month we saw some encouraging news about browser preference.