More than 100 million people have installed Internet Explorer 7, making it the second most used browser in the U.S., trailing only its predecessor -- IE 6, the software maker said Friday.

"I'm pleased to report that on January 8, we had the 100 millionth IE7 installation," Microsoft Group Program Manager Tony Chor said on the IE blog. "However, even more important than installations is usage. According to WebSideStory (the company we use to measure browser usage), as of this week, over 25 percent of all visitors to Web sites in the U.S. were using IE7, making IE7 the second most used browser after IE6."

Microsoft said it expects IE 7 usage to grow as the company completes more localised versions, offers it up to more Windows XP users through Automatic Update and releases Vista to consumers at the end of the month. The final version of the new browser has been available for download by XP users since October and is also built into Vista.

Rival Firefox is not standing still, meanwhile. The latest version, Firefox 2, was released in October. Mozilla has also released an alpha, or early test version, of Firefox 3.

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Comments

1

Brad - 17/01/07

Pushing it as a critical automatic update will naturally boost the numbers as they obvious indented; unsuspecting users will have it installed automatically without a choice with the default update settings. Improve IE6, instead of hiding behind IE7. There are and still will be more IE6 users than IE7 for a long time - as IE7 is a new learning curve and just no where as good as the simplicity and functionality of Mozilla Firefox in my opinion.

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Peter Tilbrook - 18/01/07

Rubbish! That is only because it is FORCED upon you of using the Windows Update service. The browser itself sucks.

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2

Peter Tilbrook - 18/01/07

Rubbish! That is only because it is FORCED upon you of using the Windows Update service. The browser itself sucks. ... more

1

Brad - 17/01/07

Pushing it as a critical automatic update will naturally boost the numbers as they obvious indented; unsuspecting users will have ... more

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