Microsoft Internet browser, Internet Exploder has been suffering from a slow slide into obscurity lately.
Johnny-Come-Latelies Firefox and Google's Chrome have been carving up a large chunk of Redmond's market share.
New figures from Net Applications seem to indicate that IE's fall from grace has stopped and the browser may even be set for a comeback.
According to Ars figures the February browser market share numbers show that Internet Explorer is up 0.77 percent to 56.77, Firefox is down 0.99 percent at 21.74.
Some of the gains were partly attributed to a change in the way that Net Applications' calculates its figures.
The company uses demographic data from the Central Intelligence Agency to construct its estimates and countries are scaled to take into account population and levels of Internet penetration.
Western Europe, where Firefox is the most popular, has ended up with a smaller share of the global Internet audience which has given IE a boost.
Google's Chrome gained 0.23 points, to 10.93, continuing that browser's steady growth. Apple's Safari has stayed more or less the same. Opera declined from 2.15 percent from 2.28.
To be fair to Opera, its global base is European so it might also have suffered from the change of European influence on global browser statistics.
Internet Explorer 8 has grown, from 34.17 to 34.95 percent, and usage of Internet Explorer 6 and 7 has declined. However it seems that Redmond still has its work cut out trying to get users to upgrade.
I didn't realise the CIA had become the "Office of National Statistics" for America.
Ars technica have been cozying up to Redmond just of late, so I'm not surprised that they have suddenly found a way to 'boost' appearences there.
Scrabble around as much as you like, but all of Microsoft's traditional strengths have been waning, and IE market share shows no sign of improving (unless you massage the figures or 'choose obscure data sources'). It might just get a blip of 1% or 2% based on the huge marketing spend which will accompany IE9.
But it will soon tail off again once the advertising budget is switched off.
( Prepare for a banner ad onslaught in March and April, does not come cheap to buy that many ads. )
The competition supports WebGL and MathML, whereas IE is only just getting around to properly implementing other standards, which competing browsers implemented 2 years back.
The shyness and modesty; the demure reservedness; the soft spokeness; the admittedly affectedly or coyly decorous and sober and sedate manner of Microsoft's CEO is a quality, no doubt responsible, for a great many perforations.
Had Microsoft gain control over Java, the world would be in the other plaice.