8 ms·

Chrome at 20% market share, IE9 less than IE7

105 points by nextparadigms 15y ago

tc7 15y ago
I upgraded to IE9 to test a web app I'm working on, with the usual "1st IE test" dread. Surprised and super pleased by how well it worked. Way less awful than previous IE versions, in my limited testing. Even looks better - less cluttered ui. If chrome, ff and ie9 had a 3 way tie, I'd be perfectly fine with that..
- m3koval 15y ago
  After briefly using IE9 after using Firefox and Chrome for ages, I felt exactly the same way. Not only was IE9 substantially better than IE7 and IE8, but some of the UI decisions seem better than Firefox. If its support for HTML5 and CSS3 have improved by a similar amount (I honestly have no idea), then we finally have three relatively comparable browsers.
  - dave1010uk 15y ago
    I great site to compare what different browsers support is http://caniuse.com http://caniuse.com . For example, you can see that IE9 and Firefox 3.5 are quite closely matched here: http://caniuse.com/#compare=y&b1=ie+9&b2=firefox+3.5 http://caniuse.com/#compare=y&b1=ie+9&b2=firefox+3.5 As a web developer (and Firefox user), I believe that IE9 is miles better that any previous version of IE but I still think Microsoft have a lot of catching up to do. Hopefully IE10 will lessen the gap even more.
- Periodic 15y ago
  I feel that if IE wasn't so terrible it would still occupy the top spot. All other things being equal, IE is still distributed as the default browser to more systems than any other browser. The issue is that users have many reasons to switch. If Microsoft can rebuild IE's reputation and make it into an honestly good browser, it will keep the top spot. It's only because Microsoft got lazy with IE that it has fallen so far, and the power of integration with the rest of the Microsoft suite is demonstrated by the share it still has.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
This is a good sign for us Chrome developers. I've been seeing increased purchases of my app recent even to be quite frank, it's pretty rough around the edges. When the Web Store was released to the stable branch I saw a huge spike in page views and then it quickly trailed off. My page views haven't gone up but purchases have; I'm guessing it's new users. I'm hopefully that the Chromebooks will be successful because my particular app is designed for Chrome OS (it uses the "panel" mode which launches the app in a little window in the bottom of the screen. In desktop Chrome it launches as a new window which isn't as good of an experience). This news is still good; shows that even if Chromebooks are not successful Chrome proper is.
- cheez 15y ago
  What's your app? I'll buy it :D
- jahmed 15y ago
  I have a CR-48 and would be interested in checking it out.
nkassis 15y ago
I wonder if chrome was counted twice? The fact that some are still running 11 and other were running 12 makes me think that maybe users were in the middle of that switch? I'd put their numbers around 12% then. Whatever it is, I think it good. My app is biased to chrome because that's what I use. I keep seeing more and more people on chrome at my browser research lab (snooping on people's laptop at starbucks ;p)
- ZeroGravitas 15y ago
  They way they count that can't happen (or rather it always happens for all browsers, since they count browser usage, not unique users) so it's definately 20%, at least by the count of this source: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201006-201105 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201006-201105
- rorrr 15y ago
  I just looked at analytics of one of my relatively popular non-tech site, and here's the breakdown: FF: 36% IE: 22% IE8: 61% IE9: 21% IE7: 13% IE6: 5% Chrome: 21% Safari: 12.6% Opera: 6.6%
  - mestudent 15y ago
    My non-tech site (small, ~10,000 uniques per month): IE 45% IE8 72% IE7 19% IE9 7% IE6 2% FF 23% Safari 19% Chrome 10%
majmun 15y ago
It seems like Chrome has eaten up Firefoxes market share. if im not mistaken.
- kenjackson 15y ago
  No, I think it is generally from IE. If you look at Firefox, it is basically flat, over the past two years. All the growth is Chrome. See http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-200911-201105 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-200911-201105 But it does raise a question, since they count browser usage, and not unique users -- I fully expect that ppl who use Chrome/FF to spend a LOT more time on the web browsing more sites. If we count unique users do we see a sharp uptick in IE percentage?
  - shantanubala 15y ago
    Yeah -- the actual user count probably favors IE. Especially if you define "user" as having used the browser in the past week or something (I know I have, but not because I like IE). Also, it seems that Firefox would've grown a lot more over the past couple years if not for Chrome (I feel like Firefox got a lot of new users over the past couple years, but also lost a decent amount of existing users).
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    I think browser usage is a better metric anyway. Why should I count as an IE user if I only open it once per month, or even once per week? How does that help them? Browser usage is much more important.
    - kenjackson 15y ago
      I think they're both very valid metrics -- but of different things. For example, I spend about 50x more time online than my parents do, and I think we need a metric to capture that. But we also need a metric that points out that people who open up their computer once a day for 20 minutes to check email, pay bills, and read the news -- may have very different browser characteristics.
- 15y ago
Zakuzaa 15y ago
20% is really huge in such a short timespan. Chrome must be becoming increasingly one of the prominent sources of user data for Google.
- azakai 15y ago
  > 20% is really huge in such a short timespan. I don't think so. I am surprised it isn't higher. First of all, Chrome's advertising campaign is immense. Chrome ads are plastered all over the web, including crucial places like google.com. Chrome is spending more on advertising than other browsers have available altogether. Second, Chrome is a good product. Google has invested enormous resources into it, the kind that only an industry giant like Google, Apple and Microsoft can do, and the results are exactly as you would expect - good. Third, we are also starting to see some special integration between Google web properties and Chrome, optimizations that appear only in that combination of browser+website. (Even if these are not proprietary protocols and so forth, Google still has an incredible advantage in the direct connection between the teams.) Leveraging Google's websites like that is a special advantage of Google that other browser makers do not have. In summary, for these three reasons, I don't think Chrome's market share is surprising at all. In fact I am surprised it isn't higher.
  - masklinn 15y ago
    > First of all, Chrome's advertising campaign is immense. Chrome ads are plastered all over the web They're even in meatspace. There have been Chrome ads in Paris's métro since early 2010, and they were still going strong last time I went there (a week ago), although they're only in a few places now (during the early part of the campaign, Chrome ads took over whole stations)
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  - saturdaysaint 15y ago
    Those are good reasons, but the subtext of the parent post is how absolutely intractable IE's share has been for years, despite (once) poor performance and being appallingly behind the curve on new features (tabs, extensions, etc.). Google's own research showed that users didn't even understand the abstraction of a browser application - they were simply "ummm, on the internet". Clearly, Google made headway on these issues, but I think you underestimate how profound consumers needed (and still need) to be educated that they even have a choice of web browsers and that choice impacts their daily web experience.
brudgers 15y ago
Safari 5.0 has passed IE6.
HaloZero 15y ago
An equally likely situation is that users are migrating from IE to both Chrome and Firefox. Now there are also users migrating from Firefox to Chrome. Thus Firefox has remained stable, while Chrome has had immense growth.
- experimental 15y ago
  It's also true that users have moved to Firefox from Chrome, being that for example depending on the metric Firefox is faster, but mostly the same speed. QEMU in javascript is a good example of a real world example where Firefox's javascript engine doubled Chrome's speed or thereabouts.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
mbrubeck 15y ago
Google appears to be spending quite a bit to increase Chrome's market share - not just through advertising, but also through aggressive bundling deals. For example, Skype's installer also installs Chrome and selects its as the default browser—if the current default browser is IE. There's a choice to opt out, but the installer's standard action is to install and select Chrome. I assume the Skype installer deal will change once Microsoft finishes acquiring Skype, but Chrome is also bundled in the installers for other popular software like Avast Antivirus and (I think) Adobe Shockwave. Some details: http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=67785482-1A64-67EA-E4A686A82023E4DA http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=67785482-1A64-67EA-E4A686A8... https://blog.avast.com/2009/12/03/avast-and-google-chrome/ https://blog.avast.com/2009/12/03/avast-and-google-chrome/ [Disclosure: I work for Mozilla. My comments are based on my opinions, not my employer's.]
- yuhong 15y ago
  Adobe Flash now provide it as an option too.
  - Tiomaidh 15y ago
    Seems questionable, considering that recent versions of Chrome come with Flash built-in.
- Daniel14 15y ago
  I can see two benefits of increasing Chrome market share for Google, that justify these expenses: 1) It speeds up the web. Since every second internet user makes Google money, making the web a great place for both consumers (speed, security) and developers (standards, up-to-date browsers) is very much in Google's interest. 2) It makes Google the default search engine. Instead of being at the mercy of browser developers and having to pay them huge sums of money, they can directly make lots of people use their search engine (and look at their ads). I personally believe the second point is what actually finances the Chrome team. Like android, Chrome is but "moat" for Google, protecting their main source of revenue: Search. Shaking up the industry for the better is just a nice side effect.
jackfoxy 15y ago
Remember: results vary greatly for individual websites. So if your livelihood depends on web presence, monitor your own statistics and make sure there is a good user experience on all the browsers that matter to you.
InclinedPlane 15y ago
It's actually somewhat ironic, since chrome wasn't ever specifically intended to take over the browser market. It was intended to shake up browser development and get everyone building better, faster browsers that supported the lattest standards. I think it's fair to say they've succeeded tremendously. When chrome was launched web devs were looking at a landscape where maybe if they were lucky they could start thinking about html5 and css3 in another decade or so. Now things couldn't be more different, people are deprecating ie6 support left and right and lauching a business that uses bleeding edge web standards is far from a death sentence.
- joeybaker 15y ago
  I can't speak to Google's actual motivations for developing Chrome, but I think it is safe to say that taking over the browser market is more than a nice side affect. Let's not forget that Google makes their money by targeting Ads, therefore there's a lot of money to be made by knowing _all_ of your browsing habits.
  - magicalist 15y ago
    Yes, that made up strategy would be very profitable. Here, I'll help you get started on a "yeah-huh!" rebuttal: http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/chrome/google-chrome-privacy-whitepaper.pdf http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/chrome/google-chrome-p... (pdf)
- huckfinnaafb 15y ago
  If that's true, then their attitude of "we don't want to be the biggest player, we just want to change the game" seems to be a habit for them, as they've said the same thing with regards to their ISP service. I think Chrome and Firefox, together, have really pulled the web out of the dredges and put it on a path of more frequent updates and a more diverse market. Kudos to the Chrome dev team and all the people who contribute to Chromium.
  - sjwright 15y ago
    I'd save my biggest thanks to the guys who turned the cute little KHTML library into a seriously modern and scalable engine. Not only do their combined efforts power a full quarter of the desktop market, but probably something like 95% of the modern smartphone market. Anyone who's ever had to develop for the shitty custom browsers written by LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens (etc etc etc) knows what I mean. So yeah, thanks Apple.
melling 15y ago
The numbers are already out of date. Google just upgraded 160 million people to Chrome 12. Firefox will hopefully upgrade 200 million people to Firefox 5 this week. I've watch the numbers for the past couple of weeks and IE9 has caught IE7. The web could really get a bump if we just nudge the remaining legacy browser users to upgrade. Why anyone would run IE6 or IE7 is beyond me.
- DougWebb 15y ago
  People still use Windows XP, and people still use old ActiveX software that was developed when IE6 ruled and Microsoft was still pursuing dominance through lock-in. The real question is why Microsoft hasn't developed a way to install newer versions of IE on the older OS'. There must be a way to isolate the browser from the rest of the system, even if they have to wrap a VM around it.
  - abraham 15y ago
    MS wants to sell newer versions of Windows.
- Hawramani 15y ago
  Some businesses use legacy software that depend on IE6 and therefore don't want to risk breaking them by upgrading.
jamesgagan 15y ago
hard to believe that in this day and age, browsers aren't standardized to the extent say cars or televisions are...then we would not have these problems.
the_gws 15y ago
I would bet that most of that ie6 and ie7 share is business computers. It's the IT department that decides when to upgrade those browsers and not the users. In home computers ie might not be the dominant browser anymore!

105 points by nextparadigms 15y ago

tc7 15y ago

I upgraded to IE9 to test a web app I'm working on, with the usual "1st IE test" dread. Surprised and super pleased by how well it worked. Way less awful than previous IE versions, in my limited testing. Even looks better - less cluttered ui. If chrome, ff and ie9 had a 3 way tie, I'd be perfectly fine with that..

m3koval 15y ago
After briefly using IE9 after using Firefox and Chrome for ages, I felt exactly the same way. Not only was IE9 substantially better than IE7 and IE8, but some of the UI decisions seem better than Firefox. If its support for HTML5 and CSS3 have improved by a similar amount (I honestly have no idea), then we finally have three relatively comparable browsers.
- dave1010uk 15y ago
  I great site to compare what different browsers support is http://caniuse.com http://caniuse.com . For example, you can see that IE9 and Firefox 3.5 are quite closely matched here: http://caniuse.com/#compare=y&b1=ie+9&b2=firefox+3.5 http://caniuse.com/#compare=y&b1=ie+9&b2=firefox+3.5 As a web developer (and Firefox user), I believe that IE9 is miles better that any previous version of IE but I still think Microsoft have a lot of catching up to do. Hopefully IE10 will lessen the gap even more.
Periodic 15y ago
I feel that if IE wasn't so terrible it would still occupy the top spot. All other things being equal, IE is still distributed as the default browser to more systems than any other browser. The issue is that users have many reasons to switch. If Microsoft can rebuild IE's reputation and make it into an honestly good browser, it will keep the top spot. It's only because Microsoft got lazy with IE that it has fallen so far, and the power of integration with the rest of the Microsoft suite is demonstrated by the share it still has.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

This is a good sign for us Chrome developers. I've been seeing increased purchases of my app recent even to be quite frank, it's pretty rough around the edges. When the Web Store was released to the stable branch I saw a huge spike in page views and then it quickly trailed off. My page views haven't gone up but purchases have; I'm guessing it's new users. I'm hopefully that the Chromebooks will be successful because my particular app is designed for Chrome OS (it uses the "panel" mode which launches the app in a little window in the bottom of the screen. In desktop Chrome it launches as a new window which isn't as good of an experience). This news is still good; shows that even if Chromebooks are not successful Chrome proper is.

cheez 15y ago
What's your app? I'll buy it :D
jahmed 15y ago
I have a CR-48 and would be interested in checking it out.

nkassis 15y ago

I wonder if chrome was counted twice? The fact that some are still running 11 and other were running 12 makes me think that maybe users were in the middle of that switch? I'd put their numbers around 12% then. Whatever it is, I think it good. My app is biased to chrome because that's what I use. I keep seeing more and more people on chrome at my browser research lab (snooping on people's laptop at starbucks ;p)

ZeroGravitas 15y ago
They way they count that can't happen (or rather it always happens for all browsers, since they count browser usage, not unique users) so it's definately 20%, at least by the count of this source: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201006-201105 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201006-201105
rorrr 15y ago
I just looked at analytics of one of my relatively popular non-tech site, and here's the breakdown: FF: 36% IE: 22% IE8: 61% IE9: 21% IE7: 13% IE6: 5% Chrome: 21% Safari: 12.6% Opera: 6.6%
- mestudent 15y ago
  My non-tech site (small, ~10,000 uniques per month): IE 45% IE8 72% IE7 19% IE9 7% IE6 2% FF 23% Safari 19% Chrome 10%

majmun 15y ago

It seems like Chrome has eaten up Firefoxes market share. if im not mistaken.

kenjackson 15y ago
No, I think it is generally from IE. If you look at Firefox, it is basically flat, over the past two years. All the growth is Chrome. See http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-200911-201105 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-200911-201105 But it does raise a question, since they count browser usage, and not unique users -- I fully expect that ppl who use Chrome/FF to spend a LOT more time on the web browsing more sites. If we count unique users do we see a sharp uptick in IE percentage?
- shantanubala 15y ago
  Yeah -- the actual user count probably favors IE. Especially if you define "user" as having used the browser in the past week or something (I know I have, but not because I like IE). Also, it seems that Firefox would've grown a lot more over the past couple years if not for Chrome (I feel like Firefox got a lot of new users over the past couple years, but also lost a decent amount of existing users).
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  I think browser usage is a better metric anyway. Why should I count as an IE user if I only open it once per month, or even once per week? How does that help them? Browser usage is much more important.
  - kenjackson 15y ago
    I think they're both very valid metrics -- but of different things. For example, I spend about 50x more time online than my parents do, and I think we need a metric to capture that. But we also need a metric that points out that people who open up their computer once a day for 20 minutes to check email, pay bills, and read the news -- may have very different browser characteristics.
15y ago

Zakuzaa 15y ago

20% is really huge in such a short timespan. Chrome must be becoming increasingly one of the prominent sources of user data for Google.

azakai 15y ago
> 20% is really huge in such a short timespan. I don't think so. I am surprised it isn't higher. First of all, Chrome's advertising campaign is immense. Chrome ads are plastered all over the web, including crucial places like google.com. Chrome is spending more on advertising than other browsers have available altogether. Second, Chrome is a good product. Google has invested enormous resources into it, the kind that only an industry giant like Google, Apple and Microsoft can do, and the results are exactly as you would expect - good. Third, we are also starting to see some special integration between Google web properties and Chrome, optimizations that appear only in that combination of browser+website. (Even if these are not proprietary protocols and so forth, Google still has an incredible advantage in the direct connection between the teams.) Leveraging Google's websites like that is a special advantage of Google that other browser makers do not have. In summary, for these three reasons, I don't think Chrome's market share is surprising at all. In fact I am surprised it isn't higher.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > First of all, Chrome's advertising campaign is immense. Chrome ads are plastered all over the web They're even in meatspace. There have been Chrome ads in Paris's métro since early 2010, and they were still going strong last time I went there (a week ago), although they're only in a few places now (during the early part of the campaign, Chrome ads took over whole stations)
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- saturdaysaint 15y ago
  Those are good reasons, but the subtext of the parent post is how absolutely intractable IE's share has been for years, despite (once) poor performance and being appallingly behind the curve on new features (tabs, extensions, etc.). Google's own research showed that users didn't even understand the abstraction of a browser application - they were simply "ummm, on the internet". Clearly, Google made headway on these issues, but I think you underestimate how profound consumers needed (and still need) to be educated that they even have a choice of web browsers and that choice impacts their daily web experience.

brudgers 15y ago

Safari 5.0 has passed IE6.

HaloZero 15y ago

An equally likely situation is that users are migrating from IE to both Chrome and Firefox. Now there are also users migrating from Firefox to Chrome. Thus Firefox has remained stable, while Chrome has had immense growth.

experimental 15y ago
It's also true that users have moved to Firefox from Chrome, being that for example depending on the metric Firefox is faster, but mostly the same speed. QEMU in javascript is a good example of a real world example where Firefox's javascript engine doubled Chrome's speed or thereabouts.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

mbrubeck 15y ago

Google appears to be spending quite a bit to increase Chrome's market share - not just through advertising, but also through aggressive bundling deals. For example, Skype's installer also installs Chrome and selects its as the default browser—if the current default browser is IE. There's a choice to opt out, but the installer's standard action is to install and select Chrome. I assume the Skype installer deal will change once Microsoft finishes acquiring Skype, but Chrome is also bundled in the installers for other popular software like Avast Antivirus and (I think) Adobe Shockwave. Some details: http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=67785482-1A64-67EA-E4A686A82023E4DA http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=67785482-1A64-67EA-E4A686A8... https://blog.avast.com/2009/12/03/avast-and-google-chrome/ https://blog.avast.com/2009/12/03/avast-and-google-chrome/ [Disclosure: I work for Mozilla. My comments are based on my opinions, not my employer's.]

yuhong 15y ago
Adobe Flash now provide it as an option too.
- Tiomaidh 15y ago
  Seems questionable, considering that recent versions of Chrome come with Flash built-in.
Daniel14 15y ago
I can see two benefits of increasing Chrome market share for Google, that justify these expenses: 1) It speeds up the web. Since every second internet user makes Google money, making the web a great place for both consumers (speed, security) and developers (standards, up-to-date browsers) is very much in Google's interest. 2) It makes Google the default search engine. Instead of being at the mercy of browser developers and having to pay them huge sums of money, they can directly make lots of people use their search engine (and look at their ads). I personally believe the second point is what actually finances the Chrome team. Like android, Chrome is but "moat" for Google, protecting their main source of revenue: Search. Shaking up the industry for the better is just a nice side effect.

jackfoxy 15y ago

Remember: results vary greatly for individual websites. So if your livelihood depends on web presence, monitor your own statistics and make sure there is a good user experience on all the browsers that matter to you.

InclinedPlane 15y ago

It's actually somewhat ironic, since chrome wasn't ever specifically intended to take over the browser market. It was intended to shake up browser development and get everyone building better, faster browsers that supported the lattest standards. I think it's fair to say they've succeeded tremendously. When chrome was launched web devs were looking at a landscape where maybe if they were lucky they could start thinking about html5 and css3 in another decade or so. Now things couldn't be more different, people are deprecating ie6 support left and right and lauching a business that uses bleeding edge web standards is far from a death sentence.

joeybaker 15y ago
I can't speak to Google's actual motivations for developing Chrome, but I think it is safe to say that taking over the browser market is more than a nice side affect. Let's not forget that Google makes their money by targeting Ads, therefore there's a lot of money to be made by knowing _all_ of your browsing habits.
- magicalist 15y ago
  Yes, that made up strategy would be very profitable. Here, I'll help you get started on a "yeah-huh!" rebuttal: http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/chrome/google-chrome-privacy-whitepaper.pdf http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/chrome/google-chrome-p... (pdf)
huckfinnaafb 15y ago
If that's true, then their attitude of "we don't want to be the biggest player, we just want to change the game" seems to be a habit for them, as they've said the same thing with regards to their ISP service. I think Chrome and Firefox, together, have really pulled the web out of the dredges and put it on a path of more frequent updates and a more diverse market. Kudos to the Chrome dev team and all the people who contribute to Chromium.
- sjwright 15y ago
  I'd save my biggest thanks to the guys who turned the cute little KHTML library into a seriously modern and scalable engine. Not only do their combined efforts power a full quarter of the desktop market, but probably something like 95% of the modern smartphone market. Anyone who's ever had to develop for the shitty custom browsers written by LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens (etc etc etc) knows what I mean. So yeah, thanks Apple.

melling 15y ago

The numbers are already out of date. Google just upgraded 160 million people to Chrome 12. Firefox will hopefully upgrade 200 million people to Firefox 5 this week. I've watch the numbers for the past couple of weeks and IE9 has caught IE7. The web could really get a bump if we just nudge the remaining legacy browser users to upgrade. Why anyone would run IE6 or IE7 is beyond me.

DougWebb 15y ago
People still use Windows XP, and people still use old ActiveX software that was developed when IE6 ruled and Microsoft was still pursuing dominance through lock-in. The real question is why Microsoft hasn't developed a way to install newer versions of IE on the older OS'. There must be a way to isolate the browser from the rest of the system, even if they have to wrap a VM around it.
- abraham 15y ago
  MS wants to sell newer versions of Windows.
Hawramani 15y ago
Some businesses use legacy software that depend on IE6 and therefore don't want to risk breaking them by upgrading.

jamesgagan 15y ago

hard to believe that in this day and age, browsers aren't standardized to the extent say cars or televisions are...then we would not have these problems.

the_gws 15y ago

I would bet that most of that ie6 and ie7 share is business computers. It's the IT department that decides when to upgrade those browsers and not the users. In home computers ie might not be the dominant browser anymore!