Google's Chrome web browser has overtaken Apple's Safari to become the third most used browser in the world, after only hitting the public sphere for the past 15 months.
Data from analytics firm Net Applications shows that Chrome jumped from 3.9 per cent of usage to 4.6 per cent based on 160 million visitors to the network of sites using Net Application's services.
Chrome's popularity boost could possibly be attributed to the browser's launch for Mac and Linux at the start of December last year. Google had previously only made available a developer preview version of the browser.
In saying that though, Apple's own Safari may have dropped in the lead table, but it still increased its user share from 4.4 per cent to 4.5 per cent, showing that Apple faithfuls may not be the group behind the Chrome surge.
Google had wanted to keep pushing growth by intending to graduate Chrome 4.0 beta to "stable" by next week.
The web giant has recently removed this action from its development calendar though, as the Mac beta version does not support Chrome 4.0 extensions and still needs widespread testing.
Despite this hiccup, Google has been wheeling and dealing and signed a deal with Sony to install Chrome on its laptops in an attempt to spread Chrome's appeal to users not necessarily willing to download it.
The data from Net Applications shows that Internet Explorer is still at the number one position with Mozilla’s Firefox in second place.
Both browsers saw a fall in market share with IE dropping from 63.62 per cent to 62.69 percent. Firefox fell only slightly from 24.72 per cent to 24.61 per cent.
Opera remained in fifth place but also saw user growth from 2.31 to 2.4 per cent, its highest ever share of the market.
Are you one of the seemingly many who have switched to Chrome? Leave us a comment and let us know.