aggresive work developing IE9 . Microsoft has been trying to rid the world of Internet Explorer 6 , introduced in 2001 and now considered outmoded , slow , and insecure . Even though IE lost share overall , Microsoft can point to progress in upgrading : The various versions of IE8 accounted for 28.9 percent of usage . Meanwhile , another analytics firm , StatCounter , reported IE6 use had dropped below 5 percent in the United States and Europe and to 9.8 percent worldwide . `` At these levels , Web developers now have valid justification not to support IE6 in the future , '' StatCounter Chief Executive Aodhan Cullen said in a statement . The company collected its data from 15 billion page views of Web pages in May . Net Applications also released statistics for iPad use , showing gradual gains since the Apple tablet 's release . With the iPad now for sale internationally , usage peaked May 29 with 0.17 percent . Net Applications ' data shows the iPad is relatively popular on the weekend . Use generally is lowest as a fraction of browsing on Monday , climbs gradually as the weekdays progress ,
-LRB- CNET -RRB- -- Google 's Chrome browser continued to carve away share of worldwide browser usage from rivals in May , new statistics show . Chrome rose 0.3 percentage points to 7.1 percent of share , said Net Applications , which monitors browser usage on a network of Web sites . The statistics reflect activity , not the number of people using a browser , as people load up about 160 million pages each month on sites Net Applications monitors . Because Web usage is increasing , the absolute number of people using a browser can increase even as its fractional share of usage drops . The share losses came from Microsoft 's Internet Explorer , which dropped 0.3 percent to 59.7 percent , and Mozilla 's Firefox , which dropped 0.2 percentage points to 24.4 percent . Fourth-place Safari from Apple rose 0.1 percentage points to 4.8 percent , and Opera rose 0.1 percentage points to 2.4 percent . The browser market has become hotly competitive with new features being built in to support new Web standards . Even Microsoft , long considered a technology laggard even as its browser dominated , is back in the game with