Every now and then, we like to take the temperature of Lifehacker readers to see where their loyalties lie in the browser wars, and the competition is as fierce as it's ever been.

Proving the Old World can still be positively refreshing when it comes to some things, the unstoppable decline of Internet Explorer in the motherland has finally left Firefox with the European pole position.

Internet Explorer, across all versions, lost about 8% of its market share between December 2009 and 2010. Firefox, on the other hand, by losing just 3% of its share, has ended up on top. The biggest winner, and seemingly the only browser to gain market share, is Google's fleet-footed Chrome browser, which began the year at 5% and ended at almost 15%.

In the rest of the world, Internet Explorer is still by far and away the most popular browser (at least according to StatCounter). In fact, the only other territory where Firefox is in the lead is Antarctica...

Google Chrome 8.0 stable is finally released for Windows, Mac and Linux. The latest version, Google Chrome 8.0.552.215, include a built-in PDF viewer among many other stability related enhancements and major security fixes.

What's New in Google Chrome 8.0?

Google Chrome 7 stable version has been released and it is already available for Windows, Mac and Linux. The latest version is Google Chrome 7.0.517.41 to be precise.

Google Chrome Stable Hits Version 7
Sticking to its promise of 6 month release cycle, Google Chrome has released Google Chrome 7 for Windows, Mac and Linux users a day ago. The latest release brings in hundreds of bug fixes and other improvements. There is a major boost to speed as well.

According to Google, the latest Google Chrome 7.0.517.41 comes with a number of bug fixes, an updated HTML5 parser, and file API and directory upload via input tag and a number of new features. Apart from these enhancements, the new Google Chrome 7 closed a number of major security holes as well. You can find more information at Chromium Security page.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer(IE) is going down and fast. According to a recent study, Internet Explorer market share is below 50% for the first time in 11 years. And the major beneficiaries of this downward spiral of IE are obviously Mozilla Firefox, which got a speed boost recently through its new JaegerMonkey javascript engine, and Google Chrome, which is growing from strength to strength with every new release.

Download Google Chrome 7
If you are already using Google Chrome in your Ubuntu, all you need to do is a "sudo apt-get upgrade". As you all should know already, Google Chrome automatically installs Google repository in Ubuntu and hence you get the latest Google Chrome updates without doing anything new. Otherwise you could simply download the latest Google Chrome 7 from here.

Browser wars has never been so intense and it seems the real winners are going to be the open source browsers. I have been using Chromium and Firefox for years now and it's really heartening to see them winning against the much bigger rival. On a final note, you may also want to learn how Chromium is different from Google Chrome.

Internet Explorer has been in a steady downward spiral for years now and Microsoft is just not able to stop the decline. According to recent statistics from StatCounter, Internet Explorer might have dipped below 50% market share for the first time in 11 years.

Microsoft IE Market Share at a Historic Low
Microsoft spend millions on the Ad campaign promoting Internet Explorer 8(IE8) in the past few months and during the period, there was even a slight increase in IE market share. But it is now evident that the slight increase was solely because of the costly TV commercials and internet ad campaign that promoted IE8 as the safest browser out there.

Filed under: Microsoft, Browsers

Firefox has long been the go-to web browser among power users for its impressive feature set, extensibility, and openness. But Google's nimble, light, also extensible and open browser, Chrome, has won over Firefox's core user base. Here's why: More »

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Internet Explorer 9 beta boasts some impressive new features, Firefox 4 is just around the corner with the very cool tab-management feature, Panorama, and Chrome continues to impress with speed, stability, and syncability. We're wondering: Which browser do you prefer? More »

Filed under: Fun, Google, Browsers

Remember those Chrome speed tests? Well, apparently the guys at Opera saw them too, and wanted to one-up Google. The only issue was what approach to take. Google's tests are apparently very well funded and are done by a large crew of dedicated professionals.

PR budgets and relative size differences being what they are, Opera wasn't left with much of a choice but to play the underdog card, ... and they played it hard.

In a highly scientific speed test, you can see a couple of overdone Norwegians trying to pit the Opera browser against the time it takes to cook a potato. I don't want to ruin the end, but let's just say that Opera does come out on top.