BEIJING, June 30 — Google Chrome has replaced Apple Safari for the first time as the third most used Internet browser in the United States, behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) and Mozilla’s Firefox, according to media reports Wednesday.

Chrome had 8.97 percent of the U.S. browser market in the week that ended June 27, topping Safari’s 8.88 percent, said analytics company StatCounter.

“This is quite a coup for Google as they have gone from zero to almost 10 percent of the U.S. market in under two years,” StatCounter chief executive Aodhan Cullen said in a release.

Figures also show that 52 percent of U.S. users surfing the Internet with IE. Free and open-source browser Firefox remained the second most popular with 28.48 percent of people using it.

StatCounter said its statistics was based on an analysis of 3.6 billion page views, 874 million of them in the U.S., captured from its network of counters embedded in the pages of three million websites.

Outside the U.S., Chrome remained in a solid third place with 9.4 percent of the browser market while Firefox had 31 percent, and IE 52.8 percent. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sci/2010-06/30/c_13376697.htm