Google Chrome has become the top browser in the world, beating out rival Internet Explorer, according to new data. 
 
 Net Market Share, an analytics firm, said Google's browser had 41.71 percent of the market share in April compared to Microsoft Internet Explorer's 41.33 percent. In third place was Firefox at 10.06 percent, followed by Apple's Safari at 4.47 percent. 
 
 Chrome was already crowned the winner back in 2012 according to another measure by the tracking group StatCounter. At the time, Firefox came in second and Internet Explorer was third. 
 
 The reason for the different results is that the two companies measure web traffic differently. Net Market Share counts unique visitors, instead of page views, per day. Another huge difference is that Net Market Share analyzes more than 40,000 websites, according to a description of its methodology. StatCounter says that it tracks more than 3 million sites around the world. 
 
 While the war of the browsers has been competitive over the years, it hasn't been cutthroat. 
 
 Internet Explorer and Mozilla teams have sent cakes to one another to celebrate various achievements. 
 
 "We started this tradition when we sent them a cake for Firefox 2. It was probably the best damn cake I've eaten," Internet Explorer engineer Jacob Rossi said of one marble chocolate vanilla confection, according to a Reddit AMA forum in 2014. ||||| Google's Chrome browser shortcut is shown next to Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser shortcut (Photo: Paul Sakuma, AP) 
 
 NEW YORK—Microsoft's Internet Explorer is no longer king of the browser hill. 
 
 That distinction belongs instead to Google’s Chrome, which according to NetMarketShare.com (known also as Net Applications.com), registered a collective desktop market share for all versions of the browser of 41.67% in April, nipping IE, which had a 41.37% share. The market share for Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer's successor, is included in the tally. 
 
 Mozilla Firefox (9.76%), Apple Safari (4.91%) and Opera (1.89%) round out the top five.​ On a version-by-version basis, NetMarketShare reports that Chrome 49 was the leader in April with a 21.79% share, besting runner-up IE 11 at 19.88%. 
 
 Microsoft pretty much kicked the venerable Internet Explorer to the curb when it chose a brand new Web browser, Microsoft Edge, for Windows 10. Then this past January, Microsoft announced it was ending technical support and security updates for all versions of IE except the current version IE 11. 
 
 A rival tracker company, StatCounter, which measures usage differently than NetMarketShare, already had Chrome in the lead. 
 
 Internet Explorer has been dominant browser space since the latter stages of the 20th Century when it toppled Netscape, leading to a famous antitrust case that Microsoft and the U.S. Dept. of Justice ultimately settled. 
 
 As recently as June 2015, IE had nearly double the share of Chrome (54.00% versus 27.23%). But IE has been on the decline ever since, largely to Chrome's benefit. Firefox has also fallen. 
 
 These days, Microsoft has turned its attention to Edge. In a blog post just last week, the company announced that on Windows 10, Edge will be the only browser that will launch when you search from a Cortana search box. 
 
 Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech columnist @edbaig on Twitter 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/26Mmrv5 ||||| Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has long been the most used browser on the internet. But its iron grip began slipping ever since Google launched Chrome in 2008. In 2012, one usage tracker declared Chrome the new champion, but some others still had IE in the lead. Now, all the holdouts are in agreement—Chrome is king. 
 
 This past march, Computerworld released a detailed report which concluded that by May 2016, Chrome would be the undisputed champion, and Chrome hit the mark, NetMarketShare, the stat counter that Microsoft has long referenced as the most accurate source for measuring which browser reigns supreme, now says Chrome is the undisputed winner. It controls 41.66 percent of the market whereas Internet Explorer and Microsoft’s new Edge browser collectively have 41.35 percent. Chrome is unlikely to cede the position as Google plans to introduce a new Chrome design, made to be even more touch-friendly. 
 
 Chrome is number one. Let it ring throughout the land. 
 
 [NetMarketShare via PCWorld]
– The Internet king is dead; long live the Internet king. ABC News reports Google Chrome became the most popular Internet browser in the world in April, overtaking Internet Explorer. Last month, Chrome held 41.71% of the market to Internet Explorer's 41.33%, according to analytics firm Net Market Share. Internet Explorer had been the world's most popular browser dating back to the last century, when it unseated Netscape, USA Today reports. But the writing was on the wall for Internet Explorer after Microsoft decided to replace it with Microsoft Edge in the newest Windows edition. Google Chrome was already declared the market-share winner by StatCounter back in 2012 due to differences in measurement techniques—page views vs. unique visitors, among others. Regardless, eight years after Chrome's launch, it's unanimous. "Chrome is number one," Gizmodo states. "Let it ring throughout the land." According to Net Market Share, Chrome and Internet Explorer were trailed by Firefox and Safari in third and fourth place, with 10.06% and 4.47%, respectively. (This browser plugin scrubs the Internet of mass killers.)