Google Chrome -browse 40,000 Websites that the company monitors

In IT market : browser battle returned to a kind of normalcy last couple of days as Microsoft's IE (Internet Explorer), which had posted its huge-ever share increase in Jan, declined slightly in Feb. And Google-Chrome fell for the 2-nd month in Web metrics firm Net Application's statistics as the company acknowledged it has been over counting that browser share for months. Chrome's pre-rendering feature -- where the browser loading pages in the background that the user may view -- kicked off last Aug with version 13, and was enhanced in Chrome 17 that launched about a couple of days ago. As users type in search strings, whether at www.google.com or in the browser's combined address bar-search field, dubbed the "omnibox," G00gle loads one or more hidden pages that it thinks the user will select from the ensuing search links. Net Applications admitted that it had given Chr0me a larger share than the browser deserved. "[Pre-rendering] creates unviewed visits that should not be counted in Chrome's usage share," said Net Applications on its web-site yesterday. Starting with the data from Feb, Net Applications has adjusted Chrome's share -- which is derived from the page views attributed to the browser -- by tossing aside unused pre-loaded pages and counting only those the user actually sees.

"Pre-rendering in Feb. o accounted for 4.3 % of Chrome's daily unique visitors," said Net Applications. Chrome is the only major browser that offers pre-rendering. Under the new meth0d0l0gy, Chrome's share fell about one half of a percentage point to end February with 18.9 percent, off its peak of 19.1 % last December. The browser remained in the No. 3 slot, behind both IE and Firefox. Last month, Net Applications linked Chrome's decline to Google's Jan. decision to demote the Page-Rank - a rating Google assigns based on how many other sites link to a URL -- for Chrome's download site after it c0nfirmed a marketing campaign had violated the company's own rules against paid links. At the time, Google said it would punish its own browser with a 60-day Page-Rank demotion; the time out ends in a just few days, after which Google will presumably restore the download page's prominence in search results for "browser." Currently, Firefox is the top result of such searches, while Opera Software's Opera is 3rd, Apple's Safari is 5th, and IE is 7th. IE lost just over one-tenth of a percentage point to account for 52.8 % all browsers used on desktop and notebook personal computers, while Firefox stayed flat at 20.9 %. Safari's share grew the most of any browser last month, adding three-tenths of a percentage point to reach 5.2 percent, an all-time high in Net Applications' tracking. Safari's spike wasn't a surprise: The share of apple - Mac OS X, whose users also comprise the bulk of Safari's Browser users, climbed by a record amount last couple of days, too.

Among the multiple editions of IE, the 11 year old Microsoft IE6 lost the most share, falling down by more than a percentage point to 6.9 %, while the newer IE7 fell to 4.7 %. Meanwhile, IE8 and IE9 gained four-tenths of a point and almost a full point, respectively. IE9 saw its share climb to 12.6 %. IE9 on Windows 7, which Microsoft again said was its "core metric," now accounts for 30.1 % the world's browsers used on that operating system, and owns a 40.5 % of the Windows 7 browser market in the U.S. On Wednesday, Microsoft issued the fifth so-called "Platform Preview" of IE10, the next browser in its line, as part of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. The preview -- essentially an alpha edition -- also runs on Windows 7, but will not work on either Windows XP or Vista. Net App. has not yet begun tracking IE10 share. Rival Irish measurement company Stat Counter painted a gloomier picture of IE's position, saying that ie browser had dropped 1.7 points to 35.8 %, while Chrome was in the No. 2 spot with 29.8 %-- an increase of 1.4 points -- and Firefox held steady at third with 24.9 percent. Net App. calculates browser usage share with data obtained from more than 16o million unique visitors who browse 40,000 Websites that the company monitors. More browser statistics can be f0und on the company's website.