The Google browser showed a strong uptick over the holidays and into January.
The latest numbers from NetApplications show that Google’s (GOOG) Chrome continues to gain market share against Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer, whose share fell to 56% of the browser market. Firefox, the number two browser, remained steady at over 22%. And Apple’s (AAPL) Safari continues to grow steadily, crossing the 6% barrier for the first time, landing at 6.3%.
Chrome and Safari are both based on the open source Webkit framework, which is nearing 20% of all browser usage.
It is important for Google to continue to gain Chrome market share because its upcoming ChromeOS is based on that browser and it needs a large enough audience familiar with the browser to make inroads into the OS market.
Overall numbers graphed below:
