The total UK online population reached its highest point ever in July, with 31.8 million unique visitors, according to the July comScore World Metrix service.

Google and Microsoft maintained the top positions as the most visited sites.

But the poor weather saw UK surfers flocking to the internet to find a way to escape the clouds and rain.

Cinema site Odeon emerged as the top gaining property in July with a 49 per cent increase from 1.8 million to 2.6 million unique visitors.

Holiday booking site Lastminute.com experienced a 30 per cent increase to reach 5.2 million unique visitors, while Cheapflights grew by 22 per cent to 2.8 million visitors and First Choice Holidays grew 19 per cent to 3.6 million.

"The success of travel and holiday sites mirrors the seasonal trends in the offline world, with July being a popular month for holiday, retail and entertainment sites," said Bob Ivins, executive vice president of international markets at comScore.

"However, with the weather in the UK being so poor this summer it is clear that, for domestic recreation activities at least, people have been surfing the internet for indoor entertainment, hence the growth in traffic to Odeon.co.uk."

Social networking proved to be another way to pass the time. Facebook became the UK's third fastest growing site in July, increasing traffic by 26 per cent to reach 7.6 million unique visitors.

The site has grown by 366 per cent since the beginning of the year to become the UK's third largest social networking site behind Bebo and MySpace.

Education and learning took a back seat in July, however, as Wikipedia saw a four per cent drop in traffic to 11.7 million unique hits.