The Telegraph reports here that Mozilla’s Firefox has overtaken Internet Explorer as the preferred browser for internet users in Europe. And Google’s Chrome is fast gaining a strong foothold in this intensely competitive market. The market share data suggests an oligopoly but we know that despite the dominance of a small number of web browsers, the reality is that competition is fierce and millions of web users have their own quite strong preferences!

Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Browser Market Share

Lots to think about here in terms of economic efficiency - not least dynamic efficiency and innovation in the market.

And also the impact of competition policy in action .... as the article says at the end

“Since early 2010, Microsoft has offered millions of European customers that use its Windows software the option of using 12 different internet browsers. This followed an agreement in December 2009, when European Union regulators accepted Microsoft’s pledge to give consumers better access to rival browsers, ending a long antit-trust dispute.”

A hat tip to Ian Goff for spotting the article. If you want to keep an eye on what is happening to market share on a daily basis this is the link to the StatCounter site