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Research from AT Internet Institute indicates that Microsoft is losing European market share in the web browser sector with Internet Explorer. The firm says IE is being seriously shaken up by rival browsers across the continent.

"Despite the release of its Version 8 in March of this year, Internet Explorer does not reverse the browser market trend in Europe, quite the contrary," says AT. "The leading browser continues to give ground to its competitors and in some countries has been overtaken by Mozilla."

Internet Explorer has decreased by nearly 3 points over the last six months. In September, on average 62% of visits to a site in a European country were made through IE. This is compared to 64.6% in March. Meanwhile, Safari gained a point, reaching 4.3% and Chrome’s share doubled, reaching 2.8%.

Mozilla continued to rise going from 27.8% in March to 28.4% in September, while Opera remained stable at about 2.2%.

According to AT, IE experienced the largest decline in visit shares for sites in Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgari, and Austria.

It should be noted that AT’s data is based on estimates from "a certain cross-section" of sites that meet certain criteria. "These criteria are very strict and their aim is to remove any websites which have an anecdotal audience, or a chaotic audience, or whose collected data suspects a dysfunction in the measure," the methodology says.

Firefox has surpassed the popularity of Internet Explorer and become the leading browser Hungary and Slovakia.

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