The quintessential elements that facilitate the access to data from the web via fixed workstations or while on the move are the web browsers. Such is their perpetual presence that we have almost forgotten that they exist. They are a wonder of web application development and rich internet application development. With the browser plug-in development industry focused on augmenting the user’s web experience, the browsers have slowly but surely evolved and the market has seen the inception of potential rivals.

A recent study has revealed that Microsoft’s legendary browser, the Internet Explorer is slowly losing its grip over the market. The newest entrant in the scheme of things, Google’s Chrome web browser is clawing away at the market share of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The numbers showed a significant rise in the user share for Chrome with around 6.73% users opting for Chrome. This data was collated from over 40,000 websites that were collectively and they marked an increase of around 0.6% for the browser. The increase in the user share for Chrome was equivalent to the fall in IE’s share which is something to take note of. The major reasons for this shift in usage paradigm are the security problems and lethargic updates that have plagued IE. But Microsoft has always been known for its dexterity and state-of-the art web application development and browser plug-in development methodologies. In keeping with this trend and with a view to fighting the competition that has sprung up Microsoft decided to launch their Internet Explorer 9. It is being touted as the only browser that leverages standard user web patterns and efficiently runs them better on modern PCs through Windows. IE 9 includes HTML5; the newest standard for next-generation web pages, including CSS3, Scalable Vector Graphics, XHTML parsing, and tags for H.264/MPEG4 and MP3/AAC codecs. Hardware acceleration for speeding up of rendering of graphics and text is also supported in the browser. Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari have gained market shares and clocked higher user acceptances of around 0.07%. Only IE and Opera have seen a decrease in their user share.

The browser wars for a larger market share and user approval are heating up. With cutting-edge innovation and state-of-the-art web application development, rich internet application development and browser plug-in development becoming the order of the day, the future holds a large promise of success for the browser arena.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Web 2.0 . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.