Earlier today, Clif wrote on how Chrome and Safari are stealing users from IE globally, however, here comes more bad news for Internet Explorer. According to stats released by website tracking firm Stat Counter, Firefox has overtaken Internet Explorer as the most used browser in European countries.

According to Stat Counter, Firefox now has 38.11% share in the European market as compared to IE’s 37.52%. However, here’s the catch. Firefox is not gaining users from Internet Explorer, instead Google Chrome is the one that is making dents into their market share. According to the Stat Counter CEO, Firefox has more or less been stable, whereas IE has been the one losing market share.

Google Chrome has about 14.8% market share as compared to 5.06% in December last year. That itself is a huge gain. Firefox on the other hand have lost market share since last year.

In addition to Google Chrome, this feat can also be credited to the new browser ballot system for browsers that was enforced on all new Windows PCs by law of the European Union.

However, IE is still one of the top browsers in North America, but that crown could soon be placed on top of Firefox’s head too. Google Chrome is by far one of the best browsers available today. However, with Firefox 4 around the corner and the new Opera 11 browser it will be very hard for Internet Explorer to overcome the competition.

My prediction is that Google Chrome will own around 25-35% market share by end of 2011 and Opera should end up with 5-7% while Firefox remains stable or sheds some more users.