Nielsen Online research shows that Facebook beat Google, MSN and eBay to become the most used web brand in the UK.

Facebook has 12.7% of UK Internet related time – up by over 5% from April 2008.

Time spent on Facebook rose by 3.8 billion minutes to 6.2 billion minutes. MSN/Windows Live (messenger and hotmail) had 9.2% share of time – 4.5 billion minutes. Google came third with 5.3% (2.5 billion minutes).

Also in top ten were eBay, Yahoo, AOL Media Network, the BBC, YouTube, Microsoft and Apple.

The research also showed that the top ten web brands accounted for 45% of all UK Internet time – compared to less than 42% in April 2008.

The average Briton spent 22 hours 20 miutes online or using Internet applications. A 34% rise on last year when the figure was 16 hours 36 minutes.