Google Chrome Is Now the Undisputed Champion of the Web Browser World

Microsoft has long been the reluctant choice of World Wide Web viewers, but today it has finally been dethroned by Google’s Chrome as the world’s most popular Web browser.

According to Web analytics firm NetMarketShare, Google’s browser overtook Internet Explorer as the desktop Web browser with the greatest market share.

It’s been a long, slow slide into second place for Internet Explorer, which has been losing ground to Chrome since Google introduced it in 2008. IE hung on to first place for the last eight years, despite constant maligning from programmers and office workers alike. (NetMarketShare also pointed out that the most recent release of Chrome, Chrome 49, was already the most popular Web browser, but now all versions of Chrome are more popular than all the versions of any other Web browser.)

Chrome now accounts for 41.66 percent of the browser market, 0.31 percent more than Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge—Microsoft’s replacement for Internet Explorer. NetMarketShare also tracks the market share of search engines and mobile operating systems, both of which Google also dominates.

That means Google now controls the Internet experience for the majority of internet users—every step of the way.