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WebSideStory calculates IE's share in the US at 89.85 per cent, a significant drop from highs of 96 per cent and more. The chief reason for this drop is, of course, Firefox whose share has continued to grow to 5.69 per cent.

OneStat's global figures tell a similar story, with IE at 87.28 per cent and Firefox

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slightly higher at 8.45 per cent. It puts Apple's Safari into third place with 1.21 per cent, ahead of Netscape and Opera.

OnStat comments that Firefox appears to be the upgrade choice for many IE 5 users.

'It seems that global usage share of Mozilla's Firefox is still increasing and the total global usage share of Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still decreasing,' said Niels Brinkman, co-founder of OneStat.com. 'It looks like that browser users of Internet Explorer 5 are switching to Mozilla Firefox instead of upgrading to Internet Explorer 6.0.'

WebSideStory notes that although downloads of Firefox continue apace, usage growth has slowed.

'This is probably to be expected as we move beyond the early adopter segment,' said CEO Jeff Lunsford. He said that although earlier estimates projected Firefox's share to hit 10 per cent by mid-2005, this now looks 'unlikely'.