IE market share: not so fast, TechCrunch

TechCrunch is all a-flutter that Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has lost 11% market share since March. However, they use StatCounter's graph of browser version share to illustrate the article, which combined with the graph (and how many people are reading the body of the post?) makes it look like Firefox and IE are neck-and-neck. Here's the real graph:

Global browser market share July 2008 to July 2009

Still a steep dive for IE and clearly a gain for Firefox, but IE still has a big lock on the browser market with 55% share, a big lead over its nearest competitor.

Of course, the genuine good news in TechCrunch's graph is that IE6 has finally dipped below 10% market share. As any good webdev knows, IE6 is the bane of the web, holding back the release of a whole slew of fun new technologies. This share is enough to keep it an A-grade browser in YUI's chart of graded browser support, but now only in Windows XP (Windows 2000 support was dropped this month).

So: still good news, but don't go declaring victory for Firefox just yet.