ReadWriteWeb

Google Chrome has had a big impact on the browser market since its release in September 2008. The latest report from NetMarketShare puts Chrome at 6.73% market share, ahead of Safari on 4.72% and behind only IE (59.95%) and Firefox (24.59%).

What's more interesting about Chrome is the activity it's enjoying from early adopters and geeks. Our own browser statistics at ReadWriteWeb show that Chrome was used by 17.89% of our readers in April, putting it behind only Firefox (38.95%) and IE (24.76%). Further, our figures show a very clear movement from Firefox to Chrome over the past year. Chrome has gained nearly 11% over the past year, whereas Firefox has lost over 15%.

Mozilla, the organization behind the Firefox web browser, introduced a "plugin checker" page last fall that analyzed whether the plugins you had installed in your web browser were up to date. Now that tool has been updated to check plugins installed in other web browsers too, including Safari, Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer.

According to the Director of Firefox Development, Johnathan Nightingale, plugin safety is an issue across the web. "Outdated plugins are a major source of security and stability risk for web users," he wrote in a recent company blog post.

For all our supposed internet leadership, we North Americans are more likely to use Internet Explorer than people in any other continent in the world. Respected website traffic analysts Quantcast see a whole lot of people flying around the web every day and this morning the company published some browser numbers broken down by continent.

What part of the world has the highest percentage of people who use the best browser available, Google's Chrome? Good job, South America, you're number one. North America isn't just #1 in I.E. use (not that there's anything wrong with that), we're also in last place for Chrome and Firefox. Check out the chart below.

As part of the European Union's antitrust agreement with Microsoft, the company will be required next year to show a list of alternatives to Internet Explorer to any Windows user with IE installed as their default browser.

Love or hate the government intervention, it's notable to see which browsers are about to get a big boost in user numbers. The EU says increased viability in the browser market will lead to more competition and more innovation. Here are the companies that will get a first crack at new levels of market viability in Europe.

Yahoo announced its acquisition of Maktoob today in a deal meant to improve programming in areas like the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Wrote VP of Emerging Markets Keith Nillson, "We're committed to responsible global engagement. This means being sensitive to local laws, customs, and norms." As critical thinkers, are we going to sit back in our English-only culture bubbles or do we also want a taste of that global engagement? If you're a Firefox user and you're interested in accessing foreign language sites, you may want to try the Worldwide Lexicon's new Universal Translator Toolbar.

Today from AdaptiveBlue there comes a new version of the semantic browser extension Glue (previous coverage) which allows you to create a browser-based social network around the things you and your friends find online. This latest release, four months in the making, finally makes Glue compatible with Internet Explorer - a move which Glue's creators hope will allow them to tap into a wider, more mainstream audience.

The Cooliris browser add-on was just updated to a new version that now offers something many users have been clamoring for: Linux support. With the 1.10 release of this 3D photo and video viewing plugin, Linux users running Firefox 3 can now also take advantage of this visually impressive software program for surfing through rich media on the web. In addition, the new version of Cooliris includes improvements to their Facebook support, the ability to browse local files on your computer, and the addition of metadata to the content you're viewing.

It might take a few more years, or it might happen suddenly, but trends appear to indicate that the time when Internet Explorer is used by the majority of people on the web will soon come to an end.

New numbers from analytics firm Net Applications put IE at a mere 67.5%, having dropped more than 7% last year. The bulk of that loss is coming from users of IE 6, an 8 year old browser that many users now appear to be replacing with Firefox, Safari or Chrome, instead of updated versions of IE.