7 ms·

Google Chrome’s amazing growth spurt. The top web browser by June 2012?

86 points by DanielRibeiro 15y ago

xdissent 15y ago
statistical trolling. EVERYONE knows the IE browser share takes 5 years to budge. Great projections, but it just means Chrome might be eating Firefox's lunch for a minute.
clhodapp 15y ago
I'm fairly sure that the percentages in the second chart add up to about 110...
- sukuriant 15y ago
  It seems coach was right, then ... you can give 110% percent
- mbrubeck 15y ago
  One of the many reasons this sort of simple extrapolation of current trends makes no sense in the long run.
  - clhodapp 15y ago
    Actually, their prediction for Chrome in particular looks kind of polynomial. To be fair it does look a little polynomial on the left side of the prediction line, too, but as you point out, using this kind of extrapolation on percentages is ridiculous in any case.
batiudrami 15y ago
Ah extrapolation by mean difference. My favourite part is the assumption that growth will continue to accelerate as market share increases, when firstly, that doesn't make any sense, and secondly, we have data from Firefox's growth showing that the opposite happens.
- GeneralWaste 15y ago
  Yes I must admit as soon as I saw their graphs this sprung to mind. http://xkcd.com/605/ http://xkcd.com/605/
cageface 15y ago
Of course that kind of extrapolation is mostly just wishful thinking, but Google's success in this market is impressive. IMO they've raised the quality bar for all the other browsers in a very short time.
- MikeCapone 15y ago
  Indeed. Even the comic book that they released to explain the innovations of Chrome was a great idea to make people understand and care more about this important piece of software.
  - invisiblefunnel 15y ago
    For those who haven't seen it: http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html
- zyb09 15y ago
  They also do a whole lot of marketing. Some month ago there was a campaign all around the city advertising Chrome on billboards and in the subway. Software ads are kinda rare here, I think the last time I've seen some was at the launch of Windows7. Seeing Chrome posters in public at a time, where only developers where using it, was kinda surprising.
robryan 15y ago
Depends how effective they are at converting people that don't really care. Pretty much everyone that really spends any time at all thinking about browsers and their differences would have already tried chrome. I think they will continue to make inroads into IE with word of mouth recommendations and user frustration, a lot of the Firefox crowd though would be pretty happy with it and unlikely to change.
- MikeCapone 15y ago
  I've installed Chrome on at least 4 people's computers and they are still using it. If you win over the geeks, you get a lot of other 'dependent' people. Business usage will be harder, though... Maybe if Chromebooks really take off.
- mbrubeck 15y ago
  For the people who don't care what browser they use, Google is converting them by bundling Chrome with other products like Skype, which automatically installs Chrome and makes it the default browser on IE users' computers. I posted some more details about this in the previous discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2719358 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2719358
zitterbewegung 15y ago
I think it will level out eventually IMHO mostly because the other two probably will have users that really don't want to switch.
- tlrobinson 15y ago
  Not to mention market share can't exceed 100%...
- Steko 15y ago
  I think it will level out because: (1) the quality of Firefox and IE have shot up over the last year in response to Chrome. (2) Chrome's users are the most fickle and thus the most susceptible to new (or old) competition.
  - Drakeman 15y ago
    I can relate to number one, but what's your evidence for number two?
    - irrelative 15y ago
      Early adopters are generally the least loyal of any customer. They are much more likely to take a risk on new technology and give it a shot.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - Estragon 15y ago
      Just an anecdote, but I have been using chrome for the last six months because everything else was slow as a dog on my Mum's MacBook Pro, and chrome was super-fast. But the lack of decent keyboard link navigation is driving me crazy, and may drive me back to firefox soon.
      - ams6110 15y ago
        Interesting, I've found Chrome to be slightly faster than Safari on my MacBook, but also much more prone to stalls and complete catatonia than Safari.
staunch 15y ago
Installing Chrome as default browser on my mother's computer felt a lot like when I set Google.com as her home page in 1998. And I did it for very similar reasons. Chrome is the fast/lightweight/awesome version of what already existed.
becomevocal 15y ago
Especially with the newer web apps coming out, Chrome 'just works'. Even though I personally use Firefox most of the time, I am telling others to use Chrome more over time. I know they'll always be able to see the web the way (I think) they should.
- ootachi 15y ago
  Firefox is automatically updated these days just like Chrome is, so there isn't much of a difference between the two in this regard anymore.
  - csulok 15y ago
    automatic update is only for security updates. major updates still do popups for users to install
3dFlatLander 15y ago
For as popular as chrome is, I feel like the browser market is going to become bifurcated between "normal users" and developers. Chrome is speedy, stable, and I recommend it to everyone since I'm the computer guy in my circle. But Firefox is still my development browser, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
- peregrine 15y ago
  What makes Firefox superior as a development browser? The Chrome Developer tools are, IMO far better then firebug...
  - te_chris 15y ago
    I don't think they're necessarily superior, but I use chrome for everything anyway because it's my main browser. I don't do too much front end stuff, but for JS debugging and the odd css/html hack, it's more than enough to keep me from having to have two browsers open.
  - mun2mun 15y ago
    Firebug with Firecookie http://www.softwareishard.com/blog/firecookie/ http://www.softwareishard.com/blog/firecookie/ Firequery http://firequery.binaryage.com/ http://firequery.binaryage.com/ Firepicker http://thedarkone.github.com/firepicker/ http://thedarkone.github.com/firepicker/ Jsonview http://jsonview.com/ http://jsonview.com/ Colorzilla http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/ http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/
    - masklinn 15y ago
      > Firecookie http://www.softwareishard.com/blog/firecookie/ http://www.softwareishard.com/blog/firecookie/ Built into the Webkit Developer Tools > Firequery http://firequery.binaryage.com/ http://firequery.binaryage.com/ jQuery objects visualisation (in console and inspector) are in the Developer Tools, rest is not (though the injection is a bookmarklet/browser extension away) > Firepicker http://thedarkone.github.com/firepicker/ http://thedarkone.github.com/firepicker/ Missing indeed, Opera's Dragonfly has a color picker but the webkit devtools don't. > Jsonview http://jsonview.com/ http://jsonview.com/ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chklaanhfefbnpoihckbnefhakgolnmc https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chklaanhfefbnpoihc... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ddngkjbldiejbheifcmnfmmfiniimbbg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ddngkjbldiejbheifc... https://github.com/rfletcher/safari-json-formatter https://github.com/rfletcher/safari-json-formatter > Colorzilla http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/ http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hmdcmlfkchdmnmnmheododdhjedfccka https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hmdcmlfkchdmnmnmhe... ?
te_chris 15y ago
This article seems to forget that 1. IE is getting better, as much as we all hate to admit it, 2. IE is still the default browser of the world's most popular operating system, 3. People are lazy and, as IE keeps getting better/faster, are going to be even more happy to just settle and get on with browsing the web - not argue over which browser is better.
- speckledjim 15y ago
  "1. IE is getting better, as much as we all hate to admit it," I think we'd all admit it's getting better, but it's still years behind firefox and chrome where it matters. The IE release cycle is also so slow that it makes it even more outdated. IE still can in no way be considered a 'modern browser'. Stats from a fairly popular webapp: Firefox=47.4%, Chrome=30.9%, IE=12.6%, Safari=3.3%, Opera=1.8% So for me the question is when IE will drop below safari and opera...
  - fleitz 15y ago
    IE 9 was released in March and IE 10 already in preview release scheduled for Sept. I designed a site around Chrome-dev (13, now 14) and it looked better in IE 10 than in FF4/5. The IE release cycle is definitely not ideal but a 6 month release cycle is a god send. IE9 is acceptable and IE10 is surprisingly good. I have a feeling the IE team is targeting WebKit as their competition and not FF. I haven't liked IE best since IE5, long time Firefox user from Phoenix 0.4, but I'd really suggest trying out IE10, it's pretty much on par with FF4 stock from everything I've seen. I still really don't like that it doesnt handle tab closing properly (IE10), but I see that FF5 finally handles tab closing half way decently. Tab handling and the 'awesome bar' or whatever the Chrome team calls it were the biggest drivers of me switching to Chrome. Also, IE10 now has a single URL/search bar which is a vast improvement and puts it on par.
    - nextparadigms 15y ago
      It's the stable version that matters, not preview one, since preview versions don't get pushed to users, and it's only a very tiny amount of people using them. Microsoft thinks in 1 year cycles, Google and now Mozilla, too, think in 6-8 weeks cycles of releasing stable browsers with new features. IE will give new features only once per year to most users.
orijing 15y ago
http://royal.pingdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/110701-chrome-prediction.png http://royal.pingdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/110701-c... Is that the predicted market share "growth" as the chart claims, or the predicted market share? I think they were trying to get at the latter, but if that's the case, by Dec 2012 (according to their projections), Chrome will have 55% share, IE 35%, and Firefox 22% or so. That adds up to be more than 100%... So it can't be projected market share, right?
xdissent 15y ago
I use Safari. Strangely, it's like the better tempered half-brother of Chrome and doesn't come with a Flash plugin I can't uninstall. Oh and it doesn't claim to have adoption statistics that are as dubious as the Enron financial statements.
- csulok 15y ago
  you could use chromium for the same effect. also, you can disable the built-in flash plugin.
dotcoma 15y ago
So, by the end of 2012, Chrome (56%), IE (35%) and Firefox (22%) together will have over 110% of the market? ;-)
fleitz 15y ago
So by 2013 it should have captured 100% of the market and by 2013 130%?
cft 15y ago
I am looking at Google Analytics of a site popular with US teens that has >12M monthly uniques: 1. Firefox 32.40% 2. Chrome 31.63% 3. IE 30.20% (last 30 days)
arnorhs 15y ago
I'm as big of a Chrome fanboy as anyone else, but that chart is wrong in so many ways. Just to give an example: the end points of the chart show the browsers at roughly 22%, 34% and 54% -- around 110% market share.. ok, maybe they're actually predicting the total growth of internet users to grow 110% in a couple of years, but you can still do a percentage calculation... Also, like te_chris mentioned, IE is getting better and I doubt we see such fast changes. But hopefully IE goes below 40% even 35% sooner than later
flocial 15y ago
One thing to note is that when you think mobile, WebKit (Chrome, Safari, Android, iPhone) is already a dominant force. We don't know what our primary web browsing device might be 10 years from now and IE is trapped in PCs (yes I'm ignoring Win Mobile phones). Kind of interesting that IE and Firefox actually share Mosaic heritage.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > One thing to note is that when you think mobile, WebKit (Chrome, Safari, Android, iPhone) is already a dominant force. Warning: there is no webkit[0] especially not on mobile[1]. While not completely true, it's important to remember three things about webkit: 1. The core engine progresses fast, and actual browser implementations fork the core, two webkit browsers may have very different capabilities and bugs due to the precise trunk revision they were forked from 2. Webkit relies on a number of abstract interfaces which are implemented differently on each port, depending on the quality of the port and the underlying platform's capabilities two webkits on two different platforms (or toolkits) may behave very differently 3. Webkit is an HTML/CSS rendering engine, javascript engines are built separately, which means (again) two webkit browsers may have very different behaviors and capabilities as far as JS and DOM go, and provide completely different sets of APIs. [0] http://ariya.blogspot.com/2011/06/your-webkit-port-is-special-just-like.html http://ariya.blogspot.com/2011/06/your-webkit-port-is-specia... [1] http://www.quirksmode.org/webkit_mobile.html http://www.quirksmode.org/webkit_mobile.html
bmurphy 15y ago
Argh. Same crap as with all the population predictions. Everybody always assumes the graph is exponential. It is not. It always levels off. The real trick is predicting where/when that will happen.
duggi 15y ago
this dude is clearly underestimating rockmelt
georgieporgie 15y ago
...and yet I still can't ctrl-tab to my last active tab.
urlwolf 15y ago
I, as mostly everyone else, was not paying attention to Opera. I rely on shortcuts, so pentadactyl and FF seemed the only way to go. Well, I have to say Opera with vimperopera is better. The shift-arrow navigation is a killer feature. M2, the mail client, actually makes me open gmail much less...

86 points by DanielRibeiro 15y ago

statistical trolling. EVERYONE knows the IE browser share takes 5 years to budge. Great projections, but it just means Chrome might be eating Firefox's lunch for a minute.

clhodapp 15y ago

I'm fairly sure that the percentages in the second chart add up to about 110...

sukuriant 15y ago
It seems coach was right, then ... you can give 110% percent
mbrubeck 15y ago
One of the many reasons this sort of simple extrapolation of current trends makes no sense in the long run.
- clhodapp 15y ago
  Actually, their prediction for Chrome in particular looks kind of polynomial. To be fair it does look a little polynomial on the left side of the prediction line, too, but as you point out, using this kind of extrapolation on percentages is ridiculous in any case.

batiudrami 15y ago

Ah extrapolation by mean difference. My favourite part is the assumption that growth will continue to accelerate as market share increases, when firstly, that doesn't make any sense, and secondly, we have data from Firefox's growth showing that the opposite happens.

GeneralWaste 15y ago
Yes I must admit as soon as I saw their graphs this sprung to mind. http://xkcd.com/605/ http://xkcd.com/605/

cageface 15y ago

Of course that kind of extrapolation is mostly just wishful thinking, but Google's success in this market is impressive. IMO they've raised the quality bar for all the other browsers in a very short time.

MikeCapone 15y ago
Indeed. Even the comic book that they released to explain the innovations of Chrome was a great idea to make people understand and care more about this important piece of software.
- invisiblefunnel 15y ago
  For those who haven't seen it: http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html
zyb09 15y ago
They also do a whole lot of marketing. Some month ago there was a campaign all around the city advertising Chrome on billboards and in the subway. Software ads are kinda rare here, I think the last time I've seen some was at the launch of Windows7. Seeing Chrome posters in public at a time, where only developers where using it, was kinda surprising.

robryan 15y ago

Depends how effective they are at converting people that don't really care. Pretty much everyone that really spends any time at all thinking about browsers and their differences would have already tried chrome. I think they will continue to make inroads into IE with word of mouth recommendations and user frustration, a lot of the Firefox crowd though would be pretty happy with it and unlikely to change.

MikeCapone 15y ago
I've installed Chrome on at least 4 people's computers and they are still using it. If you win over the geeks, you get a lot of other 'dependent' people. Business usage will be harder, though... Maybe if Chromebooks really take off.
mbrubeck 15y ago
For the people who don't care what browser they use, Google is converting them by bundling Chrome with other products like Skype, which automatically installs Chrome and makes it the default browser on IE users' computers. I posted some more details about this in the previous discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2719358 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2719358

zitterbewegung 15y ago

I think it will level out eventually IMHO mostly because the other two probably will have users that really don't want to switch.

tlrobinson 15y ago
Not to mention market share can't exceed 100%...
Steko 15y ago
I think it will level out because: (1) the quality of Firefox and IE have shot up over the last year in response to Chrome. (2) Chrome's users are the most fickle and thus the most susceptible to new (or old) competition.
- Drakeman 15y ago
  I can relate to number one, but what's your evidence for number two?
  - irrelative 15y ago
    Early adopters are generally the least loyal of any customer. They are much more likely to take a risk on new technology and give it a shot.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - Estragon 15y ago
    Just an anecdote, but I have been using chrome for the last six months because everything else was slow as a dog on my Mum's MacBook Pro, and chrome was super-fast. But the lack of decent keyboard link navigation is driving me crazy, and may drive me back to firefox soon.
    - ams6110 15y ago
      Interesting, I've found Chrome to be slightly faster than Safari on my MacBook, but also much more prone to stalls and complete catatonia than Safari.

staunch 15y ago

Installing Chrome as default browser on my mother's computer felt a lot like when I set Google.com as her home page in 1998. And I did it for very similar reasons. Chrome is the fast/lightweight/awesome version of what already existed.

becomevocal 15y ago

Especially with the newer web apps coming out, Chrome 'just works'. Even though I personally use Firefox most of the time, I am telling others to use Chrome more over time. I know they'll always be able to see the web the way (I think) they should.

ootachi 15y ago
Firefox is automatically updated these days just like Chrome is, so there isn't much of a difference between the two in this regard anymore.
- csulok 15y ago
  automatic update is only for security updates. major updates still do popups for users to install

3dFlatLander 15y ago

For as popular as chrome is, I feel like the browser market is going to become bifurcated between "normal users" and developers. Chrome is speedy, stable, and I recommend it to everyone since I'm the computer guy in my circle. But Firefox is still my development browser, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

peregrine 15y ago
What makes Firefox superior as a development browser? The Chrome Developer tools are, IMO far better then firebug...
- te_chris 15y ago
  I don't think they're necessarily superior, but I use chrome for everything anyway because it's my main browser. I don't do too much front end stuff, but for JS debugging and the odd css/html hack, it's more than enough to keep me from having to have two browsers open.
- mun2mun 15y ago
  Firebug with Firecookie http://www.softwareishard.com/blog/firecookie/ http://www.softwareishard.com/blog/firecookie/ Firequery http://firequery.binaryage.com/ http://firequery.binaryage.com/ Firepicker http://thedarkone.github.com/firepicker/ http://thedarkone.github.com/firepicker/ Jsonview http://jsonview.com/ http://jsonview.com/ Colorzilla http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/ http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/
  - masklinn 15y ago
    > Firecookie http://www.softwareishard.com/blog/firecookie/ http://www.softwareishard.com/blog/firecookie/ Built into the Webkit Developer Tools > Firequery http://firequery.binaryage.com/ http://firequery.binaryage.com/ jQuery objects visualisation (in console and inspector) are in the Developer Tools, rest is not (though the injection is a bookmarklet/browser extension away) > Firepicker http://thedarkone.github.com/firepicker/ http://thedarkone.github.com/firepicker/ Missing indeed, Opera's Dragonfly has a color picker but the webkit devtools don't. > Jsonview http://jsonview.com/ http://jsonview.com/ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chklaanhfefbnpoihckbnefhakgolnmc https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chklaanhfefbnpoihc... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ddngkjbldiejbheifcmnfmmfiniimbbg https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ddngkjbldiejbheifc... https://github.com/rfletcher/safari-json-formatter https://github.com/rfletcher/safari-json-formatter > Colorzilla http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/ http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hmdcmlfkchdmnmnmheododdhjedfccka https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hmdcmlfkchdmnmnmhe... ?

te_chris 15y ago

This article seems to forget that 1. IE is getting better, as much as we all hate to admit it, 2. IE is still the default browser of the world's most popular operating system, 3. People are lazy and, as IE keeps getting better/faster, are going to be even more happy to just settle and get on with browsing the web - not argue over which browser is better.

speckledjim 15y ago
"1. IE is getting better, as much as we all hate to admit it," I think we'd all admit it's getting better, but it's still years behind firefox and chrome where it matters. The IE release cycle is also so slow that it makes it even more outdated. IE still can in no way be considered a 'modern browser'. Stats from a fairly popular webapp: Firefox=47.4%, Chrome=30.9%, IE=12.6%, Safari=3.3%, Opera=1.8% So for me the question is when IE will drop below safari and opera...
- fleitz 15y ago
  IE 9 was released in March and IE 10 already in preview release scheduled for Sept. I designed a site around Chrome-dev (13, now 14) and it looked better in IE 10 than in FF4/5. The IE release cycle is definitely not ideal but a 6 month release cycle is a god send. IE9 is acceptable and IE10 is surprisingly good. I have a feeling the IE team is targeting WebKit as their competition and not FF. I haven't liked IE best since IE5, long time Firefox user from Phoenix 0.4, but I'd really suggest trying out IE10, it's pretty much on par with FF4 stock from everything I've seen. I still really don't like that it doesnt handle tab closing properly (IE10), but I see that FF5 finally handles tab closing half way decently. Tab handling and the 'awesome bar' or whatever the Chrome team calls it were the biggest drivers of me switching to Chrome. Also, IE10 now has a single URL/search bar which is a vast improvement and puts it on par.
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    It's the stable version that matters, not preview one, since preview versions don't get pushed to users, and it's only a very tiny amount of people using them. Microsoft thinks in 1 year cycles, Google and now Mozilla, too, think in 6-8 weeks cycles of releasing stable browsers with new features. IE will give new features only once per year to most users.

orijing 15y ago

http://royal.pingdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/110701-chrome-prediction.png http://royal.pingdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/110701-c... Is that the predicted market share "growth" as the chart claims, or the predicted market share? I think they were trying to get at the latter, but if that's the case, by Dec 2012 (according to their projections), Chrome will have 55% share, IE 35%, and Firefox 22% or so. That adds up to be more than 100%... So it can't be projected market share, right?

xdissent 15y ago

I use Safari. Strangely, it's like the better tempered half-brother of Chrome and doesn't come with a Flash plugin I can't uninstall. Oh and it doesn't claim to have adoption statistics that are as dubious as the Enron financial statements.

csulok 15y ago
you could use chromium for the same effect. also, you can disable the built-in flash plugin.

dotcoma 15y ago

So, by the end of 2012, Chrome (56%), IE (35%) and Firefox (22%) together will have over 110% of the market? ;-)

fleitz 15y ago

So by 2013 it should have captured 100% of the market and by 2013 130%?

cft 15y ago

I am looking at Google Analytics of a site popular with US teens that has >12M monthly uniques: 1. Firefox 32.40% 2. Chrome 31.63% 3. IE 30.20% (last 30 days)

arnorhs 15y ago

I'm as big of a Chrome fanboy as anyone else, but that chart is wrong in so many ways. Just to give an example: the end points of the chart show the browsers at roughly 22%, 34% and 54% -- around 110% market share.. ok, maybe they're actually predicting the total growth of internet users to grow 110% in a couple of years, but you can still do a percentage calculation... Also, like te_chris mentioned, IE is getting better and I doubt we see such fast changes. But hopefully IE goes below 40% even 35% sooner than later

flocial 15y ago

One thing to note is that when you think mobile, WebKit (Chrome, Safari, Android, iPhone) is already a dominant force. We don't know what our primary web browsing device might be 10 years from now and IE is trapped in PCs (yes I'm ignoring Win Mobile phones). Kind of interesting that IE and Firefox actually share Mosaic heritage.

masklinn 15y ago
> One thing to note is that when you think mobile, WebKit (Chrome, Safari, Android, iPhone) is already a dominant force. Warning: there is no webkit[0] especially not on mobile[1]. While not completely true, it's important to remember three things about webkit: 1. The core engine progresses fast, and actual browser implementations fork the core, two webkit browsers may have very different capabilities and bugs due to the precise trunk revision they were forked from 2. Webkit relies on a number of abstract interfaces which are implemented differently on each port, depending on the quality of the port and the underlying platform's capabilities two webkits on two different platforms (or toolkits) may behave very differently 3. Webkit is an HTML/CSS rendering engine, javascript engines are built separately, which means (again) two webkit browsers may have very different behaviors and capabilities as far as JS and DOM go, and provide completely different sets of APIs. [0] http://ariya.blogspot.com/2011/06/your-webkit-port-is-special-just-like.html http://ariya.blogspot.com/2011/06/your-webkit-port-is-specia... [1] http://www.quirksmode.org/webkit_mobile.html http://www.quirksmode.org/webkit_mobile.html

bmurphy 15y ago

Argh. Same crap as with all the population predictions. Everybody always assumes the graph is exponential. It is not. It always levels off. The real trick is predicting where/when that will happen.

duggi 15y ago

this dude is clearly underestimating rockmelt

georgieporgie 15y ago

...and yet I still can't ctrl-tab to my last active tab.

urlwolf 15y ago

I, as mostly everyone else, was not paying attention to Opera. I rely on shortcuts, so pentadactyl and FF seemed the only way to go. Well, I have to say Opera with vimperopera is better. The shift-arrow navigation is a killer feature. M2, the mail client, actually makes me open gmail much less...