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Mozilla's Firefox has replaced Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the most popular web browser in Europe.

The open source browser took a 38.1 per cent market share across the continent last month, while Internet Explorer's share slipped to 37.5 per cent. Google Chrome in third with 14.6 per cent market share.

Google Chrome saw its share rise to 14.6 per cent from just 5.1 per cent a year earlier.

Aodhan Cullen, the chief executive of StatCounter, the web analytics company that compiled the list, said: This appears to be happening because Google's Chrome is stealing share from Internet Explorer while Firefox is mainly maintaining its existing share.




'We are probably seeing the impact of the agreement between European Commission competition authorities and Microsoft, to offer EU users a choice and menu of browsers from March last year.'

In December 2009, European Union regulators accepted Microsoft's pledge to give consumers better access to rival browsers, ending a long antitrust dispute.

Firefox is still a distant second to Internet Explorer globally, trailing Microsoft's 46.9 per cent market share with 30.8 per cent

Since the beginning of March 2010, Microsoft offered Europeans the option to choose from among 12 browsers on the more than 100million old and new PCs that use its Windows software.

Globally, Internet Explorer retained a clear lead over its rivals.

Its share slipped to 46.9 per cent in December, while Firefox was at 30.8 per cent and Google was at 14.9 per cent, StatCounter said.
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