The answer to this question depends on who you ask. Latest figures for browser popularity suggest that IE comes out on top. Or that it lags well behind Chrome. How can this be?

The most recent statistics for the Desktop Browser Market Share from NetMarketShare suggest that Microsoft IE still dominates in the battle for browser share.

(click to enlarge)

Additional analysis, courtesy of TNW, reveals that IE8 accounts for the largest share, followed closely by IE9 but that IE6, which Microsoft has been trying hard to eradicate for over two years, see Microsoft Steps Up Campaign to Rid World of IE6, still lingers on, accounting for over 10% of IE users.

Looking at the current state of the The Internet Explorer 6 Countdown map the The Peoples Republic of China is the last stronghold of IE6 with 25.8% of users clinging to IE6. The credits reveal that Microsoft too depends on NetMarketShare for its figures.

(click to enlarge)

An alternative picture is pointed by StatCounter's figures. Its global statistics suggest that since overtaking IE in May 2012, Chrome has continued to forge ahead of IE:

(click to enlarge)

A rather different scenario is evident if you look at figures for USA, indicating that IE is still well ahead of Chrome - although with only 40% share.

(click to enlarge)

We wondered which of the scenarios was most like our own website usage. Here the breakdown for visitors to I Programmer for February 2013.