Google Chrome only browser to make gains in February

Data collected by web metrics firm Net Applications suggests that over the month of February, Google's Chrome web browser was the only desktop browser to make any gains over the month.

Google Chrome saw a jump in usage share to 5.61%, up 0.39% from 5.22% in January. This means that so far over 2010, Chrome has grabbed 0.96% market share.

Other browsers didn't fare so well.

• Internet Explorer: 61.58%, down 0.54% since January
• Firefox: 24.23%, down 0.20% since January
• Safari: 4.45%, down 0.08% since January
• Opera: 2.35%, down 0.03% since January

While Chrome has a long way to go to catch up with Firefox, it's now clear that this browser has what it takes to grab significant market share quickly. After all, Google has a massive online presence and can use these outlets to push the browser to users.

Net Applications measures operating system usage by tracking computers that visit the 40,000 sites monitored for clients, which represents a pool of about 160 million unique visitors each month. This data is then weighted based on the estimated size of each country’s Internet population.