Google's Chrome edged past Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) last week to become the world's most widely-used browser, according to data from an Irish metric firm.

Microsoft will not reduce the price of Windows 8 upgrades, as it did three years ago before the roll-out of Windows 7, a retail sales analyst said today.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) in April again gained usage share, the third time in the year's first four months, to stay well above the 50% mark and remain the world's top browser, a Web analytics company said today.

Windows users appear half as interested in trying out the new Windows 8 as they did three years ago when they jumped at the chance to test drive Windows 7, data shows.

Apple is offering Mac users a free upgrade to OS X 10.6, better known as Snow Leopard, in an attempt to prep them for the June switch from MobileMe to the newer iCloud online sync and backup service.

It seems scarcely a year can go by in the world of computer technology without some eager young blogger or another grandly proclaiming the death of Linux on the desktop.

The browser battle returned to a kind of normalcy last month as Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), which had posted its largest-ever share increase in January, declined slightly in February.

On the heels of yesterday's launch of Windows 8's preview, new statistics show that Microsoft's decade-old Windows XP again plummeted in usage share and will be surpassed by Windows 7 in June.