As browser competition continues to heat up, 2010 looks like the year when the market was repeatedly disrupted. Internet Explorer has not managed to gain share for a third month in a row. Firefox is leveling out while Chrome and Safari continue to grow. Opera? It's hanging on to relevance. Between July and August, Internet Explorer dropped 0.34 percent, a drop smaller than June's or July's gain.

We've put Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla FireFox, and Opera through a gauntlet of speed tests and time trials.

First came Netscape. Then came Internet Explorer. Then Netscape was reborn as Firefox, the new star of Web browsers. Now there is Chrome, a completely new browser from Google. The Web is the new battleground for 2010.

The new wave of browsers -- Firefox 4, Internet Explorer 9, Google Chrome (in just about all its incarnations) -- all compete with each other fiercely to be the best possible delivery mechanism for the web as an app platform, in four basic areas:

Google Chrome is without doubt the fastest growing web browser in terms of global market share. It was first released as a beta version on September 2008, and in just two years it quickly climbed to third place (behind Internet Explorer and Firefox) eclipsing Apple's Safari.

Web developers know the importance of testing web sites and blogs on the different web browsers available. A site/blog can look great on one browser, but if you try to access it on another one, it can probably look garbled. It’s a hassle checking a web site/blog on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, etc.

The hegemony that Internet Explorer once upon a time had is... over. Right now, other browsers are fighting amongst each other, and it's all about how much of IE's share they are getting. The war is over: Internet Explorer lost. Everybody else won. So, what kind of scenario has the IT world painfully missed?

Web surfers deserted Internet Explorer in favor of Safari, Firefox and Chrome in December, according to Net Applications.

Google's Chrome browser is gaining ground fast while Internet Explorer slides. Google's Chrome browser is now well established as the third most popular browser and its ascendency hasn't stopped yet. Internet Explorer, on the other hand, is clearly in decline.