Google Chrome moves ahead

Google's Chrome browser entered the browser war with stiff competition from Microsoft's IE,Mozilla's Firefox and Apple's Safari.It has now jumped to 9.27 percent of usage in November from 8.5 percent in October, which could be a sign that Chrome OS netbooks are being used by Googlers.

The .77 percent gain appeared to come at the expense of Microsoft Internet Explorer, which dropped to 58.41 percent from 59.18 percent a month ago, and Mozilla Firefox, which nudged down a tad to 22.81 percent from 22.83 percent.

But the star of the November browser numbers was Google's Chrome 7. Share for Google's latest build of the OS grew 5.64 percent in November, second in growth only to Firefox 3.6, which saw a 6.09 percent gain between February and March.

The gain in Chrome 7.0 and in Chrome share overall is likely due to the internal use of Chrome Operating System netbooks by Google employees and computer maker partners, such as Acer and Lenovo.

The Chrome OS which was due this year has been pushed back for some reasons which Google does not want to discuss with the media.