In 2004, Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) had over 90 percent of the browser market. Today, they're closer to 66 percent, while competitor Firefox has broken 1/5 market share. This information was brought to our attention by a graph and blog post written by Mozilla's Asa Dotzler (see below).
The numbers are important, given that every Internet user relies on a browser as his or her gateway to the Web. The numbers are telling, especially as you look at how the release of new versions of the Microsoft web browser have had almost no effect on market share or retention.
Whether it's greater security, more reliability, extensions, or something else, it's clear that more and more people are choosing Firefox, Safari, and Chrome over its slowly sinking competitor. Click on the image below for the full-sized graph:
The trend is also surprisingly linear, rather than exponential. If IE were to continue on this downhill course, Microsoft Internet Explorer would have no users by about 2021. Of course, extrapolating that far in time is completely speculative and unreliable. In the end though, it's about one simple trend: Internet Explorer continues to shed users...gradually.
We'll be sure to write a proper obituary a decade from now; but alas, IE isn't dead just yet.