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My recollection may be a bit off, but I recall the Google Toolbar got bundled with everything. People were regularly installing it and not realizing it because

My recollection may be a bit off, but I recall the Google Toolbar got bundled with everything. People were regularly installing it and not realizing it because it got added to installers for a whole bunch of unrelated things (accounting software, music players, archiving utilities, etc.). Then that toolbar and Google's search page kept spamming people to install Chrome, promising it to be a better Google experience. Which, I believe it was, because Google was doing proprietary things that only their web properties could take advantage of (a precursor to SPDY, I believe). Many others had it installed for them by tech support family members. That's not to say IE was better than Chrome. I just don't think it appearing on the desktop was a deliberate decision for many. I'd be surprised if many even realized they had installed it.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
My recollection is Chrome was legitimately better than anything else on Windows, even Firefox. One especially awesome feature was a built in pdf creator. You did not have to download cutePDF or whatever. It was also more reliable and crashed less, and probably other things I forget.
- nirvdrum 3y ago
  For the first couple of years Chrome crashed pretty regularly for me. I hated its automatic updates because it would completely break with more-than-acceptable frequency. I got pretty tired of the glib "Aw, snap!" page. To their credit, I didn't have to wait for an OS system pack to get a fix. Upon its release it also predictably had compatibility problems, leading Google to implement a wrapper around the IE engine. Firefox had compatibility issues as well. I'm not trying to say one was better than the other. I think people tend to forget the environment Chrome was released into. Do while IE wasn't great, it was far more stable for me. I favored Firefox, but it was in a bit of tumult at the time. I'm sure Chrome was a better experience for others. I think at the time Google was still basking in its adulation from tech enthusiasts, papering over Chrome's flaws. That was back when people got excited for new Google products and trusted them to not be evil. As a bonus fun fact, Chrome created a massive headache for Selenium because Firefox's internals where called "Chrome" and "chrome://" was a URL scheme. Selenium used those URLs and got stuck with loads of support requests from the ensuing confusion. Everyone thought Chrome was just an internal project name and that Google would surely pick something that didn't conflict with another browser.
no_wizard 3y ago
I remember when it was fairly common practice (as reported on forums like Reddit at the time) that more tech aware family members would replace the Chrome icon with the IE one most of the time nobody noticed. People felt so passionately about getting off IE they'd do tricks like this (and others) to escape it.
- deleted 3y ago
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GeekyBear 3y ago
One big driver for Chrome installation was that it was bundled with the popular free antivirus programs of the time when malware on the internet first exploded, Google paid vendors so that Chrome installed and made itself the default without users even knowing what had happened.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

My recollection is Chrome was legitimately better than anything else on Windows, even Firefox. One especially awesome feature was a built in pdf creator. You did not have to download cutePDF or whatever. It was also more reliable and crashed less, and probably other things I forget.

nirvdrum 3y ago
For the first couple of years Chrome crashed pretty regularly for me. I hated its automatic updates because it would completely break with more-than-acceptable frequency. I got pretty tired of the glib "Aw, snap!" page. To their credit, I didn't have to wait for an OS system pack to get a fix. Upon its release it also predictably had compatibility problems, leading Google to implement a wrapper around the IE engine. Firefox had compatibility issues as well. I'm not trying to say one was better than the other. I think people tend to forget the environment Chrome was released into. Do while IE wasn't great, it was far more stable for me. I favored Firefox, but it was in a bit of tumult at the time. I'm sure Chrome was a better experience for others. I think at the time Google was still basking in its adulation from tech enthusiasts, papering over Chrome's flaws. That was back when people got excited for new Google products and trusted them to not be evil. As a bonus fun fact, Chrome created a massive headache for Selenium because Firefox's internals where called "Chrome" and "chrome://" was a URL scheme. Selenium used those URLs and got stuck with loads of support requests from the ensuing confusion. Everyone thought Chrome was just an internal project name and that Google would surely pick something that didn't conflict with another browser.

no_wizard 3y ago

I remember when it was fairly common practice (as reported on forums like Reddit at the time) that more tech aware family members would replace the Chrome icon with the IE one most of the time nobody noticed. People felt so passionately about getting off IE they'd do tricks like this (and others) to escape it.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

GeekyBear 3y ago

One big driver for Chrome installation was that it was bundled with the popular free antivirus programs of the time when malware on the internet first exploded, Google paid vendors so that Chrome installed and made itself the default without users even knowing what had happened.