IE9 accounted for 35.5% of the world's browsers used on Windows 7 last month, an increase of one percentage point from March, said Microsoft, and owned a 52.9% share of the Windows 7 browser market in the U.S., a jump of four points. Both increases were significantly smaller than those claimed last month over February's numbers.

The browser's global share on all operating systems, however, is much lower, and for April stood at 15.9%, a bump of seven-tenths of a point.

Other versions of IE reported mixed results.

IE8, the last in the line for Windows XP users, gained eight-tenths of a point to scramble back to 26.2%, while IE7 unaccountably grew by two-tenths of a point to 7.1%.

IE6, the browser that Microsoft has been trying to put in the grave for years, lost three-tenths of a percentage point, closing April with 4.1%.