Internet Explorer's share jumped by its largest-ever increase and Chrome posted its biggest one-month loss, Net Applications Web metrics company said today.

Net Applications measures browser usage by collating data from some 40,000 sites. The firm attributed the turnabout to Google's self-imposed punishment last month when it downgraded Chrome's search page ranking, after it admitted a marketing campaign had violated the company's own rules against paid links.

"In January, the upward trend for Chrome halted and Chrome lost 0.17% share on the desktop. Internet Explorer gained 1.1% and Firefox dropped 1%, "the research firm said.

Chrome ended January with a 18.9% share, down from the previous month's 19.1%. The drop was Chrome's largest since Google launched the browser in September 2008.

Meanwhile, IE boosted its usage share by 1.1 percentage points to close January with a 53% share.

However, data released by measurement company StatCounter said that IE dropped by 1.2 points to end the month with 37.5%, while Chrome gained 1.1 points to account for 28.4% of all browsers in use.