The latest numbers from NetApplications show that Google’s (GOOG) Chrome continues to gain market share against Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer, whose share fell to 56% of the browser market. Firefox, the number two browser, remained steady at over 22%. And Apple’s (AAPL) Safari continues to grow steadily, crossing the 6% barrier for the first time, landing at 6.3%.
Chrome and Safari are both based on the open source Webkit framework, which is nearing 20% of all browser usage.
It is important for Google to continue to gain Chrome market share because its upcoming ChromeOS is based on that browser and it needs a large enough audience familiar with the browser to make inroads into the OS market.
