Open source Mozilla Foundation is celebrating the success of the launch of its latest browser, Firefox 3.5. Over the weekend the new browser cleared the 2 per cent barrier beating Google’s Chrome browser for the very first time. However, observers think that Firefox, along with its rival Internet Exploder, has lost steam and is not gaining market share as quickly any more.

According to data released by Net Applications, the current market share gains are in the likes of Safari and Google Chrome. According to data published by Net Applications, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer had an average daily market share of 65.64 per cent in June, down from 68.15 per cent at the end of 2008. Firefox follows with 22.14 per cent (up from 21.34 per cent), Safari with 9.01 per cent (up from 7.93 per cent) and Chrome with 2.01 per cent (up from 1.04 per cent).

Over the past 60 days, Firefox market share was 22.27 per cent , over the past 90 days 22.44 per cent and over the entire half year 22.17 per cent. As can be expected Firefox 3.5 is gaining ground at the expense of Version 3.0.x which indicates that Firefox users are upgrading their browsers.

Safari posted a record market share of 12.15 per cent on July 4, up from 10.13 per cent last week. More than half of Safari his are made with Safari 4.