Firefox's market share has reached 12.93 percent worldwide, gaining some more ground in the race against Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which is nevertheless way ahead with 83.05 percent of the global market, reports LinuxInsider (via TechNewsWorld), citing a report by web analytics provider OneStat.com. Firefox's global share has increased 1.14 percent since May; Explorer's has decreased 2.12 percent. Apple's Safari ranks third with 1.84 percent globally, followed by Opera with 1 percent.

In the U.S., IE is used by 79.78 percent of web usrs; Firefox, 15.82 percent; Safari, 3.28 percent; and Opera, 0.81 percent, reports Computerworld. Canada and U.K. figures are similar, but in Australia Firefox is used by 24.23 percent of surfers, and in Germany the proportion is a whopping 39.02 percent.

Mozilla this week announced the official beta release of Firefox 2.0. Among other features, the new version contains built-in phishing protection.

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