The market share of Internet Explorer (IE) in the EU saw a plunge in the wake of Microsoft rolling out a mandated "web browser choice screen" where users can opt for alternative web browsers to use for their systems. According to web measurement company StatCounter, IE's usage share has dropped by double, and sometimes triple "the average rate" in countries such as France (2.4 percent), Germany (0.9 percent), Italy (1.3 percent) and the United Kingdom (0.9 percent).

While the decline was relatively small when compared to the size of IE's worldwide market, it illustrates a slow but sure downward trend. In contrast, competitor Mozilla's Firefox gained 1.2 percentage point of the market share in the EU, while Google's Chrome went up by 0.8 percent. Of course, there is a possibility that the upcoming IE9 might yet put a stop to the eroding popularity of Microsoft's flagship browser. However, while sentiments of it were positive overall, it might be some time yet before the software is ready to be released to the public.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Computerworld

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