Microsoft IE told to go and stand in the corner in Europe

Posted 27.10.2009

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer continues to lose ground to rival browsers following the recent warnings by the German and French governments not to use Internet Explorer 6.

Internet Explorer continues to be the leading browser across Europe, with a 45% market share, but is closely tailed by Firefox who stand at a 40% share. In comparison, Internet Explorer has a 56% market share worldwide according to web analytics company StatCounter. In markets like Germany and Austria, Internet Explorer has already lost top spot to Firefox.

According to Google Trends, there was a considerable increase in the number of searches for Firefox in Germany, Switzerland and Austria at the end of last week.

Both the German and French governments warned their citizens to avoid using Internet Explorer until a security patch is released to a current vulnerability, after it was reported that a hacking attack rumoured to be of Chinese origin, against Google and 33 other companies had leveraged a flaw in Internet Explorer code.