4 ms·

Google's Chrome climbs its way to 10% of the browser market

53 points by barredo 16y ago

melling 16y ago
IE6 still has more market share than Chrome. Some mainstream advertising is needed for Google to eat into IE's market share.
- positr0n 16y ago
  By mainstream do you mean television and billboards? Maybe it's just a fluke but I seem to get tons of Google Chrome ads on the internet on youtube, pandora, etc.
  - MikeCapone 16y ago
    On blip.tv, I've been getting ONLY Chrome ads for a few days. Nothing else. It would be great if they could auto-detect that I'm already running Chrome and run something else (if they have anything else in the inventory)...
    - photon_off 16y ago
      It's possible that you don't fit into any other segments and that Chrome is the fallback advertisement for blip.tv. Do you happen to have 3rd party cookies disabled?
      - MikeCapone 16y ago
        Yes, my third-party cookies are disabled.
- paulirish 16y ago
  According to StatCounter, Chrome passed IE6 a long while ago: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200912-201012 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200912...
- NickPollard 16y ago
  Having come back to London after the holidays today, the tube (metro) is plastered with adds for Chrome again (they've pushed it quite strongly before, but this seems to be a new push).
  - robin_reala 16y ago
    I saw a Chrome cinema ad before Tron (UK as well).
- rlmw 16y ago
  In the UK I've seen adverts on TV, Billboards and online. That's a heck of a financial commitment from google to building marketshare.
ambirex 16y ago
What I find interesting is in the numbers they published seem to indicate that Chrome (+5.35%) is taking more market share away from Internet Explorer (-5.61%) than from Firefox (-1.8%). Given that the last data was in December, part of me has to wonder if college students home from college "fixed" their parent's computers.
- naner 16y ago
  Chrome is advertised frequently if you do a search on Google using IE.
  - sid0 16y ago
    Yeah -- the first time you go to google.com on IE you see a large advertisement for Chrome in the top-right corner. That is of course the only ad on the homepage -- web property doesn't get more prime than that.
  - ootachi 16y ago
    The ad appears with Firefox as well. I believe visiting Google with any non-Chrome/Chromium browser triggers it.
- redthrowaway 16y ago
  I've "fixed" my family's computers several times now. When I fixed my aunt's, she complained about it, so I removed IE, set the chrome icon to the ie icon, and told her that Microsoft released a new version of ie and I upgraded it because the old version had many security flaws that could give you viruses. She loves it now.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
Google Chrome has already won the browser war... by re-igniting the browser war. Google wanted to raise the game by fast-tracking browser innovation and enabling development of next-gen web-apps, and they have. Would CSS3/HTML5, canvas, etc. have the momentum they have today without Chrome having shaken things up? Would Firefox, Opera, and IE javascript performance have improved to the degree they have without Chrome? Would the IE team have finally knuckled under to pressure to improve standards compliance in IE without Chrome? The fact that the Chrome team has been able to put out a top-notch browser that continues to gain market share hand over fist is just a side benefit.
- noibl 16y ago
  > Google wanted to raise the game by fast-tracking browser innovation and enabling development of next-gen web-apps, and they have. We're not there yet. The underlying promise of the browser as application client is still largely unfulfilled. And mainstream adoption of emerging web standards is still hampered by 'patchy browser support' (read: IE8/7). > CSS3/HTML5, canvas, etc. Compared to the state-of-the-art, these emerging standards are fairly unambitious, as they need to be given the history of browser development. For Microsoft to support these things is a no-brainer because as exciting as they seem to web devs, the open web as software platform is a weak competitor. > Would the IE team have finally knuckled under to pressure to improve standards compliance in IE without Chrome? Very hard to say. But it's clear that the vanguard in the market share war against IE dominance is held by Mozilla, not Google, and they deserve a lot of credit for how far we've come (lower than 50% share for IE now in most Western countries). > The fact that the Chrome team has been able to put out a top-notch browser that continues to gain market share hand over fist is just a side benefit. While I agree that Google often successfully pursues a strategy of leveraging a small but critical market share in order to change markets rather than dominate them, it was the focused and determined cooperation of all the members of the WHAT WG that rescued web standards. Nothing less would have worked. Now that those members are increasingly at odds with each other, Google may start to find it needs to compete head to head with Mozilla in market share in order to get its ideas adopted. Anyway, I love using Chrome even more than I loved using Opera before it. Congrats to the Chromium team on the milestone.
binbasti 16y ago
With everyone congratulating the Chromium/Chrome team so much, I'd like to add that none of this would be possible without the WebKit project.
listic 16y ago
Nearly same picture here in Russia as well: http://www.liveinternet.ru/stat/ru/browsers.html?date=2010-12-31;period=month http://www.liveinternet.ru/stat/ru/browsers.html?date=2010-1... Despite very different picture in general (Safari is nearly non-existent, Opera is rivaling Firefox for the top), Chrome is steadily climbing in popularity and should reach 10% mark soon.
pasbesoin 16y ago
Because I've been "browsing" O'Reilly's Safari, I ended up with 25 - 30 tabs open (maybe 40). I started bookmarking them so that I could close them. When I went into Chrome's bookmark manager to check my work and maybe export a backup, the bookmark manager page was blank except for a few basic elements and non-responsive. Googling the issue provided no authoritative answer. Several descriptions of similar behavior, spanning several months, with private individuals coming up with their own solutions -- which varied. This included posts to the Google help forum(s); private solutions -- I didn't see one response from a Googler. Some solutions were involved enough, in an annoying way, that I didn't want to try them if there was something simpler. Reading between the lines of the solutions I happened upon, and remembering some of my past experiences with Chrome -- albeit some time ago -- when resource/memory utilization/exhaustion seemed to be an issue, I started closing tabs, trusting that since I could see the bookmarks within the bookmark bar's "Other Bookmarks" folder, the bookmarks were actually saved and I would have a reasonable chance of retaining them. (This is what I originally wanted to confirm in the bookmark manager before closing the tabs.) Sure enough, after I'd whacked 10 or 15 tabs open to O'Reilly Safari pages, the bookmark manager started opening completely and responding properly, again. Apparently, Chrome was reaching some limit and failing silently -- in this case, failing to successfully initialize/open the bookmark manager. Big meh. Chrome may be fast and innovative in terms of execution and rendering, but it -- and Google more generally -- still leave a lot to be desired in terms of usability and well considered feedback especially for the general user.

53 points by barredo 16y ago

IE6 still has more market share than Chrome. Some mainstream advertising is needed for Google to eat into IE's market share.

positr0n 16y ago
By mainstream do you mean television and billboards? Maybe it's just a fluke but I seem to get tons of Google Chrome ads on the internet on youtube, pandora, etc.
- MikeCapone 16y ago
  On blip.tv, I've been getting ONLY Chrome ads for a few days. Nothing else. It would be great if they could auto-detect that I'm already running Chrome and run something else (if they have anything else in the inventory)...
  - photon_off 16y ago
    It's possible that you don't fit into any other segments and that Chrome is the fallback advertisement for blip.tv. Do you happen to have 3rd party cookies disabled?
    - MikeCapone 16y ago
      Yes, my third-party cookies are disabled.
paulirish 16y ago
According to StatCounter, Chrome passed IE6 a long while ago: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200912-201012 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-monthly-200912...
NickPollard 16y ago
Having come back to London after the holidays today, the tube (metro) is plastered with adds for Chrome again (they've pushed it quite strongly before, but this seems to be a new push).
- robin_reala 16y ago
  I saw a Chrome cinema ad before Tron (UK as well).
rlmw 16y ago
In the UK I've seen adverts on TV, Billboards and online. That's a heck of a financial commitment from google to building marketshare.

ambirex 16y ago

What I find interesting is in the numbers they published seem to indicate that Chrome (+5.35%) is taking more market share away from Internet Explorer (-5.61%) than from Firefox (-1.8%). Given that the last data was in December, part of me has to wonder if college students home from college "fixed" their parent's computers.

naner 16y ago
Chrome is advertised frequently if you do a search on Google using IE.
- sid0 16y ago
  Yeah -- the first time you go to google.com on IE you see a large advertisement for Chrome in the top-right corner. That is of course the only ad on the homepage -- web property doesn't get more prime than that.
- ootachi 16y ago
  The ad appears with Firefox as well. I believe visiting Google with any non-Chrome/Chromium browser triggers it.
redthrowaway 16y ago
I've "fixed" my family's computers several times now. When I fixed my aunt's, she complained about it, so I removed IE, set the chrome icon to the ie icon, and told her that Microsoft released a new version of ie and I upgraded it because the old version had many security flaws that could give you viruses. She loves it now.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

Google Chrome has already won the browser war... by re-igniting the browser war. Google wanted to raise the game by fast-tracking browser innovation and enabling development of next-gen web-apps, and they have. Would CSS3/HTML5, canvas, etc. have the momentum they have today without Chrome having shaken things up? Would Firefox, Opera, and IE javascript performance have improved to the degree they have without Chrome? Would the IE team have finally knuckled under to pressure to improve standards compliance in IE without Chrome? The fact that the Chrome team has been able to put out a top-notch browser that continues to gain market share hand over fist is just a side benefit.

noibl 16y ago
> Google wanted to raise the game by fast-tracking browser innovation and enabling development of next-gen web-apps, and they have. We're not there yet. The underlying promise of the browser as application client is still largely unfulfilled. And mainstream adoption of emerging web standards is still hampered by 'patchy browser support' (read: IE8/7). > CSS3/HTML5, canvas, etc. Compared to the state-of-the-art, these emerging standards are fairly unambitious, as they need to be given the history of browser development. For Microsoft to support these things is a no-brainer because as exciting as they seem to web devs, the open web as software platform is a weak competitor. > Would the IE team have finally knuckled under to pressure to improve standards compliance in IE without Chrome? Very hard to say. But it's clear that the vanguard in the market share war against IE dominance is held by Mozilla, not Google, and they deserve a lot of credit for how far we've come (lower than 50% share for IE now in most Western countries). > The fact that the Chrome team has been able to put out a top-notch browser that continues to gain market share hand over fist is just a side benefit. While I agree that Google often successfully pursues a strategy of leveraging a small but critical market share in order to change markets rather than dominate them, it was the focused and determined cooperation of all the members of the WHAT WG that rescued web standards. Nothing less would have worked. Now that those members are increasingly at odds with each other, Google may start to find it needs to compete head to head with Mozilla in market share in order to get its ideas adopted. Anyway, I love using Chrome even more than I loved using Opera before it. Congrats to the Chromium team on the milestone.

binbasti 16y ago

With everyone congratulating the Chromium/Chrome team so much, I'd like to add that none of this would be possible without the WebKit project.

listic 16y ago

Nearly same picture here in Russia as well: http://www.liveinternet.ru/stat/ru/browsers.html?date=2010-12-31;period=month http://www.liveinternet.ru/stat/ru/browsers.html?date=2010-1... Despite very different picture in general (Safari is nearly non-existent, Opera is rivaling Firefox for the top), Chrome is steadily climbing in popularity and should reach 10% mark soon.

pasbesoin 16y ago

Because I've been "browsing" O'Reilly's Safari, I ended up with 25 - 30 tabs open (maybe 40). I started bookmarking them so that I could close them. When I went into Chrome's bookmark manager to check my work and maybe export a backup, the bookmark manager page was blank except for a few basic elements and non-responsive. Googling the issue provided no authoritative answer. Several descriptions of similar behavior, spanning several months, with private individuals coming up with their own solutions -- which varied. This included posts to the Google help forum(s); private solutions -- I didn't see one response from a Googler. Some solutions were involved enough, in an annoying way, that I didn't want to try them if there was something simpler. Reading between the lines of the solutions I happened upon, and remembering some of my past experiences with Chrome -- albeit some time ago -- when resource/memory utilization/exhaustion seemed to be an issue, I started closing tabs, trusting that since I could see the bookmarks within the bookmark bar's "Other Bookmarks" folder, the bookmarks were actually saved and I would have a reasonable chance of retaining them. (This is what I originally wanted to confirm in the bookmark manager before closing the tabs.) Sure enough, after I'd whacked 10 or 15 tabs open to O'Reilly Safari pages, the bookmark manager started opening completely and responding properly, again. Apparently, Chrome was reaching some limit and failing silently -- in this case, failing to successfully initialize/open the bookmark manager. Big meh. Chrome may be fast and innovative in terms of execution and rendering, but it -- and Google more generally -- still leave a lot to be desired in terms of usability and well considered feedback especially for the general user.