Remember when Internet Explorer ruled the Web, to the tune of about 98% of the browser market share? Those were happy days for Internet Explorer. Until Firefox rose from the ashes of Netscape. Internet Explorer’s market share has been sliding ever since ...

A new report shows that that slide has put Internet Explorer’s market share at just under 60%.

The release of Internet Explorer 8 hasn't had any significant impact on Firefox or any other competing browser, data collected by StatsCounter shows. While the final release of IE8 increased its market share slightly on launch day to 1.39 percent, Firefox 3.0 grew more quickly and reached 25.38 percent.

Mozilla Firefox 3, the free and open source web browser, has finally overtaken Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and is getting closer and closer behind IE 7. According to data from StatCounter Global Stats, for the first time in February of this year, Firefox 3 with 24% market share overtook IE 6.

It has been six weeks since Firefox 3 has been released and if we believe market share numbers provided by an ongoing survey of NetApplications, then it appears that Mozilla has had a successful launch with market share gains, especially at the expense of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

"According to a recent comprehensive Web browser report, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is losing market share to Mozilla Firefox. The overall report shows that IE has dropped below 70 percent. [...] Each month since October, IE has dropped a point while Firefox gained a point..."

According to Web analytics firm StatCounter, Firefox 3 has finally surpassed the popularity of Internet Explorer 7 in Europe. Internet Explorer's total marketshare across all versions, however, still exceeds that of Firefox.

"Mozilla Firefox continued its slow but steady march against the worldwide dominance of Microsoft Internet Explorer in 2007. Though the" [Free Software] "web browser continues to sit firmly in second place behind IE, where it's been for years, usage of Firefox is still on the rise. The browser is even threatening to tip the scales in some European countries -- most likely thanks to the rapid internationalization efforts made possible by the open-source development model..."

Mozilla achieved an important milestone in November, sailing past 20% market share over an entire month for the first time since its release in November 2004. While Safari and Chrome were able to take over share from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as well, Mozilla’s Firefox leaped by almost a full percentage point over October, according to data provided by Net Applications.

Mozilla Firefox 3 overtook Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 6 for the first time in February in the Internet browser wars according to monthly data from StatCounter Global Stats.