by , 1:20 PM EST, November 7th, 2005

Apple's Safari web browser is continuing to gain market share, according to the latest statistics from NetApplications. The October 2005 statistics show that Safari has climbed up to 2.56 percent of the browser market, behind FireFox at 8.59 percent, and Microsoft Internet Explorer at 86.52 percent.

Although Safari's percentage is small compared to Internet Explorer, the numbers overall are quite impressive, considering that Safari is a Mac OS X-only application, while FireFox and Internet Explorer are cross-platform applications.

In October 2004, Safari held only 1.46% of the browser market.

Safari's growth may also be indicative of the overall growth of Mac OS X, since more users are exposed to Safari when they purchase a Mac as first-time computer owners, or when switching from Microsoft Windows. NetApplications thinks this, along with Mac users who keep their computers longer than Windows users do, is helping to keep Safari's growth healthy.

NetApplications expects that Safari will continue to grow, helping FireFox erode Internet Explorer's stronghold on the web browser market.