US internet giant Google is still by far the UK's most popular search engine, a study has found.

According to research from web monitoring firm Hitwise, Google powered about 78 per cent of all UK internet searches in the four weeks to October 21.

Yahoo came second with a 7.7 per cent share, followed by MSN with 6 per cent and Ask with 5 per cent.

Google's share of the online UK search market was 77 per cent in May.

Last month, Google reported third quarter profits of $733m (£390m), up 92 per cent on the same period a year ago.

The company saw total revenues jump 70 per cent from a year earlier to a whopping $2.7bn.

Google also announced last month that it had purchased popular video-sharing website YouTube in a deal worth $1.65bn.

YouTube, which was launched in February 2005, has become one of the most popular websites on the internet.

The site delivers more than 100 million video clips a day and has around 20 million unique visitors each month.