According to a report in TechCrunch, Firefox, the Mozilla Foundation’s free web browser now commands a 13 percent global market share – up from 8.7 percent in April 2005.

The data from OneStat show Firefox usage at 16 percent in the US, 24 percent in Australia and 39 percent in Germany.

Firefox is highly regarded for it’s flexibility – the browser works as smoothly with the Microsoft operating system as it does with Macintosh or Linux – security – rare breaches have been repaired quickly – and simplicity – the look and feel is more like Google than, say Internet Explorer.

Given those assets it’s not hard to imagine continued gains for Firefox, nor is it difficult to imagine who stands to lose.