Although Microsoft's Internet browser has had the majority of the browser market share for years, recently it has been steadily declining (save for an odd jump in April) thanks to what people are calling the second edition of the browser wars. According to web metrics firm Net Applications, the difference between July 2008 and August 2008 shows that the trend is continuing.

Between the two months, Internet Explorer has dropped by almost a whole percent: from 73.02 percent to 72.15 percent. Alternative browsers have, in turn, gained: Firefox jumped by 0.51 percent to 19.73 percent, Safari grabbed 0.23 percent moving to 6.37 percent, and Opera increased its market share by 0.05 percent to 0.74 percent. Even after adding all those gains up, the numbers show that IE also managed to lose some share to other less-popular browsers. The market share pie for August 2008 now looks like this:

Data source: Net Applications

The world's most popular browser is still significantly ahead, but in the coming years, things are going to be changing. With Google entering the browser market this week and IE8 expected to arrive as early this November, the second browser war is seriously starting to heat up.