Internet Explorer remained the leading web browser worldwide in August with 60.4 percent of the market using it, according to web researcher Net Applications.

Mozilla's Firefox is at second place getting nearly 23 percent share of the web browser market in the same month and Google's Chrome ranking third with only 7.52 percent share.

Internet Explorer 8, the flagship browser of Microsoft, had the most users in August accounting for 32.44 percent of the total web browser market worldwide. IE6 lost ground to Firefox to take the third spot.

Microsoft hopes to keep the lead in the web browser market with its IE9 set for beta launching in two weeks' time. Based on preliminary reviews, IE9 is expected to be as successful as IE8 that it will prevent Firefox and Chrome from making any significant gains.

Ryan Gavin, senior director of Internet Explorer Business and Marketing at Microsoft, said the IE9 Platform Previews had more than 2.5 million downloads while the IE Test Drive Site had 20 million page views so far.