According to Network Applications' figures for January, the market share for Internet Explorer 8 rose to 22.37% from 20.82% in December. It took most of that market share from other versions of the browser. Internet Explorer 6's market share fell 0.99% from December to January, now resting at exactly one fifth of the market. Internet Explorer 7 has lost considerable traction since last March, when its share rested at over 35%. It dipped below 20% in September, and in January had slipped to 14.53%.

Google's Chrome has hardly made a dent in the market. It reached its all-time high last month, but still accounted for only 3.85% of all browsers used. And other browsers such as Safari and Opera are unlikely to fare much better; they are lumped into the 'Other' category, which has yet to break 17%.

However, Mozilla's Firefox 3.5 is slowly making headway. Its market share has risen steadily since last spring, and reached 17.08% in January. It has just been replaced by version 3.6, which has several new features, including full-screen video, protection against outdated plugins, and the ability for developers to mandate asynchronous scripts to speed up web page load times.

It is highly likely that Internet Explorer 6 will lose even more market share following last week's decision by Google to cease support for the browser. Now, many features in Google applications such as Google Docs and Spreadsheet will not work with Internet Explorer 6. The browser was also the target for the zero-day Operation Aurora attack, leading both the French and German governments to advise citizens not to use it.