Firefox had a nearly 28 percent average use rate in Europe in the beginning of July, with growth in marketshare in all 32 European countries studied by XiTi Monitor - though Internet Explorer remains the dominant browser in Europe, albeit steadily losing users - writes MarketingCharts.

Between July 2 and 8, 2007, the average visit share of a European country for Internet Explorer was 66.5 percent whereas it was 73.3 percent a year earlier, from July 3 to 9, 2006, accoding to XiTi. Opera was third with a visit share of 3.5 percent.

Globally, Firefox use is highest in Oceania, which gained 4.1 percentage points from March; it is the largest Firefox user with a use rate of 28.9 percent, ahead of Europe's 27.8 percent.

Firefox is also gaining ground in the other continents, growing to nearly 19 percent in North America, and growing 30 percent in South America to account for 15.5 percent of the browser market.

MarketingCharts provides more data from XiTi, including the latest results from the battle between the most recent browser versions: Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.