Firefox continues to grow in Europe, with the browser share now approaching 30 percent. Meanwhile, Internet Explorer has gone below 70 percent.

According to data released Wednesday by XiTi Monitor, 27.8 percent of Web users now surf with Firefox, up nearly 4 percent from March. Slovenia holds the browser's highest market share at 47.9 percent, followed closely by Finland at 45.4 percent.

Internet Explorer is still by far the most popular browser in Europe, but its share of the market has steadily fallen over the past year. In July, 2006, it had about 73.3 percent share, which fell to 66.5 percent in this month's survey.

Rounding out the top five were Opera at 3.5 percent, Safari at 1.7 percent, and Netscape at 0.3 percent. The Camino, Sony PSP, and AvantGo browsers all registered at less than 0.1 percent, XiTi said.

XiTI also gave some idea into worldwide trends in its study of Firefoxes presence. Oceania ranked first with a 28.9 percent share, up 4.1 percent. This was followed by Europe at 27.8 percent, up 3.7 percent; North America at 18.7 percent, up 3.6 percent; and South American at 15.5 percent, also up 3.6 percent.

A recent study from OneStat.com seems to back up these numbers. Worldwide, 84.66 percent were using IE, compared to 12.72 percent for Firefox. In the US, 75.69 percent used IE, compared with 19.65 percent for the alternative browser.