Picking an officially sanctioned browser for your organization may be getting harder these days. But one thing’s for sure: Few Web surfers out there feel compelled to stick with their old browser when a new one -– or new features –- seem to be appearing pretty frequently.

And nowhere is the case more pointedly made than with Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser.

For the first time since Net Applications began tracking browser use, the Firefox browser has exceeded a 20% share for a full month. Mozilla’s CEO, John Lilly, credits the Mozilla community .

“Reaching 20% worldwide market share is a significant milestone for Firefox and Mozilla,” Lilly told Net Applications. “It’s a huge achievement by the global Mozilla community, one that just a few years ago most would have considered impossible. The open Web is more vibrant than ever, and the thousands of Mozilla contributors around the world have played a major role in making it that way.”

Firefox share jumped about eight tenths of a percent in November, which is much higher than average. Why the big jump? In addition to the steady gains Firefox has shown over the years, Net Applications analysis shows three other major reasons:

• The U.S. election drove a lot of folks to the Web for results and polls; Internet usage spiked Nov. 4, the day of the election, especially in countries outside the United States
• The Thanksgiving holiday meant more people were off work and at home using their preferred Web browser, rather than one mandated by work, and
• Extra weekend days in November resulted in the same increased browsing by folks from their home systems (most months have 8.57 weekend days, November had 10).

Tags: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Mozilla, popular, Web browsing