by , 9:30 AM EST, March 1st, 2007

Safari up, Internet Explorer down: That's been a familiar trend in Web browser marketshare for over a year. February continued that trend as Apple's Safari climbed from 4.70 percent in January to 4.85 percent to maintain its third place position. Microsoft's Windows-only Internet Explorer maintained the top spot, but lost a little bit more of the market as it dropped from 79.75 percent to 79.05 percent.

The cross-platform Web browser Firefox continued to hold second place with 14.18 percent of the market, up from January's 13.67 percent according to data from Market Share.

Safari's steadily climbing numbers may be an indication that more computer users are getting on the Web with Macs instead of Windows PCs. Declining numbers for Internet Explorer, however, may not indicate fewer Windows users. Since Firefox is available for both platforms, the Internet Explorer statistics could also point to Windows users switching to Firefox as their primary browser.

Although its overall market penetration is still under one percent, the cross-platform Opera Web browser is starting to climb. At 0.79 percent, it holds the number four position behind Safari, and may start to eat away at Internet Explorer as well.

Safari's increase in marketshare has been fairly steady over the past two years. Those numbers alone can't be used as a solid gauge of overall marketshare for the Mac, but they help show the growing popularity of Apple's computer offerings.