Number of Russian Internet users doubles in two years

The number of Russian Internet users more than doubled in two years from August 2009 and grew from 10 million people to 25 million, the OpenStat think-tank said on Friday. The growth was mainly due to users from Russian regions, while the share of users from Russia's two largest cities - Moscow and St. Petersburg - fell from 51% to about 40%. The popularity of Microsoft Internet Explorer browser dropped significantly in the reported period, losing 17 percentage points. About 28% internet users currently prefer IE, followed by Firefox with 26% and Google Chrome with 17%. Yandex retained its status of Russia's largest search engine, serving 54% of all search requests, while Google accounts for 40%. Microsoft software is likely to retain its leading status among operating systems used by Russians, with nearly 94% of all Russian Internet users having Windows OS installed on their computers. The number, however, decreased by three percentage points in two years.