Firefox has a significant share of the browser market in several European countries, and its use continues to increase throughout the continent, according to French web metrics firm XiTi, writes CNET. Overall, Firefox accounted for 14.1 percent of browsers across Europe, up from 13.3 percent in April and 11.6 percent in March. XiTi, says it monitored nearly 150,000 websites that use XiTi measurement tools, and its data shows that the biggest Firefox share is in Finland, where more than 30 percent of surfers used Firefox.

In Germany, more than 24 percent did so, and in Hungary, 22 percent. Those at the bottom of XiTi's rankings of Firefox market share in 24 European countries were Luxembourg, with 10 percent; Lithuania, with 7 percent; and Monaco, with 6 percent.

In the U.S., meanwhile, Firefox's share of the browser market grew to 8.0 percent in May from 7.4 percent in April and 5.6 percent at the start of the year, according to NetApplications' HitsLink analytics service, reports MediaPost. Microsoft's Internet Explorer share of the market has fallen from 90.3 percent at the beginning of the year to 87.2 percent in April.