Google's Chrome is gaining users, especially in the wee hours

Less than day after its beta release on Sept. 2, statistics show Google's Chrome became the fourth most used browser on the Web, well above Beta 2 of Internet Explorer 8.0 -- another browser that had shown big gains in recent days.

According to the latest market share statistics from Net Applications, Google's Chrome attained usage of 1.48 percent at 4:00 am EDT on Sept. 3, fell off some, and then peaked at 2:00 am on Sept. 4 at 1.57 percent.

At 1:00 pm on Sept. 4, usage of Chrome had dropped to 0.85% -- but that was still away ahead of beta 2 of IE 8.0, a browser that saw average usage of 0.24% on September 3.

BetaNews noted that Net Applications' numbers for Chrome can be somewhat misleading if you don't consider the hour of day. Chrome's share seems to soar highest at times when US business users -- as well as most consumers -- aren't all that likely to be surfing the Web.

Still, both Chrome and IE 8.0 Beta 2 have been making impressive progress, based on the statistics.

"With the release of Beta 2 on August 27th, Internet Explorer 8.0 usage share has started to jump. Within three days of its release, usage share was already 500 percent above the peak Beta 1 usage share," according to a report by Net Applications. Since Beta 1 was primarily a developer's preview, Beta 2 is the first release to have the new features intended for the final release. These features include a much improved address bar, private mode browsing, better tabs and improved navigation."

Meanwhile, spurred by the release of the iPhone 3G, iPhone Web browsing skyrocketed 58% from July to August, for an average score of 0.30% in August, says another report from Net Applications.