Something occurred to me when reading about this subject: what does the winner of the browser wars get? Dominance over the Internet with king-of-the-hill bragging rights? Money? Women? Power? Well, actually, that third one is pretty accurate because there is a certain level of power if more people are accessing the “Information Superhighway” with your vehicle.

And, of course, with power comes more money, and, yes, women (or men), too.

While these studies pop up pretty much on a monthly basis, they serve as good barometer for the Internet habits of people, at least in relation to how they surf the Worldwide Web. In the latest report from StatCounter, it appears as if Firefox as fallen from grace, at least in relation to Google Chrome, because, for the first time, Chrome has overtaken Firefox in relation to the amount of users each browser has.

StatCounter provides a chart of their findings and as you can see, Chrome’s path has been one of steady ascension, while Firefox and Internet Explorer both show a consistent decrease of users, although, with Firefox, the decrease has been at a slower rate:

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Market Share

In the supporting press release, StatCounter explains their findings as follows:

…Chrome took 25.69% of the worldwide market (up from 4.66% in November 2009) compared to Firefox’s 25.23%. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still maintains a strong lead globally with 40.63%.

In fact, the reports of Internet Explorer’s demise, despite the steady decline, may have been exaggerated, especially in the United States:

In the US, Internet Explorer continues to perform strongly and is maintaining market share at 50.66%, up slightly from 50.24% year on year…

Of course, there’s still some backlash towards Microsoft’s browser, which was so eloquently captured by the Reddit community with the following gif:

The title of the Reddit post explains the reason for the reaction: “How I feel when I find out a friend still uses Internet Explorer.” Based on StatCounter’s findings, however, a lot of people apparently deserve that response because Internet Explorer is still strong, especially with the United States crowd.

That being said, Google Chrome still poses a legitimate threat to Internet Explorer’s dominance, something StatCounter believes as well:

“We can look forward to a fascinating battle between Microsoft and Google as the pace of growth of Chrome suggests that it will become a real rival to Internet Explorer globally,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. “Our stats measure actual browser usage, not downloads, so while Chrome has been highly effective in ensuring downloads our stats show that people are actually using it to access the web also.”

Does this mean Firefox is the odd man out in relation to being the browser of choice? What browser are you loyal to? Are you still an Internet Explorer user or have you moved on to one of the alternatives? Let us know what you think.