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Poking around by individual country the only large one I found where Chrome leads is India. Anyone have sauce on why Chrome is so popular there? Are they big

Poking around by individual country the only large one I found where Chrome leads is India. Anyone have sauce on why Chrome is so popular there? Are they big enough to skew the whole world?

geon 14y ago
> why Chrome is so popular there? Could it be because it has to run on cheap hardware? Is there any more lightweight browser?
- noahc 14y ago
  Ive found uzbl to be pretty good and lightweight. http://uzbl.org/ http://uzbl.org/
- Wilya 14y ago
  I don't think Chrome is especially lightweight. It tends to be optimized for speed by using as much resources as available. It might be better than IE in that regard, but it doesn't have any huge advantage over firefox.
- Marwy 14y ago
  Opera, of course.
- mappu 14y ago
  Dillo 3, and h3v. Non-graphical: links, w3m. Other 'light' webkit shells: uzbl, Midori, Arora
slig 14y ago
I don't know in India, but in Brazil, Google has been running TV ads about Chrome in prime time for a while. Maybe they're doing that there too.
blntechie 14y ago
Not sure this is the reason but Google advertised Chrome heavily in India in addition to the Google properties which are themselves very popular in India. They did advertisements in prime spots in TV, newspapers, other popular Indian websites etc. That could've definitely contributed. Also it's nice to see that Firefox is not lagging much behind Chrome in India. Regarding your question on population, not sure how big is the Indian internet population. I would say 5% of the country(total pop. 1 bn approx) uses Internet regularly. Not sure how much that skews the data.
abrahamsen 14y ago
On the other hand, the only region where Chrome is not leading MSIE, is North America. In Europe, Chrome has a small lead. In Asia, a medium lead. In South America, a large lead. In Africa, both are dwarfed by Firefox. One possible unfounded speculation would be that it is connected to the age of the widespread adoption of the Internet. In North America, most users have likely been on the net for a long time and therefore use older, more established technology. In India, Internet access is likely a new thing to many people (and businesses), and they are therefore less "invested" in older programs.
- femto113 14y ago
  Actually IE has huge leads in South Korea and China, who are among the top internet users. The Microsoft blog post linked above has the root cause here: StatCounter has outsized representation for India and Turkey, both which see heavy Chrome use, and doesn't adjust its overall numbers to account for this (a fact which they are open about, but it diminishes the relevance of their overall number).
  - zizee 14y ago
    And what is going in in Australia? http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-AU-monthly-201105-201205 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-AU-monthly-201105-201205
mayanksinghal 14y ago
I think I will attribute it to the following things: 1. Google had a huge advertising campaign to promote Chrome. It was unique and nothing like has been done for any other browser ever. 2. Majority of internet users in India are young. The mom's, dad's and grandmother's browser, I hypothesize, doesn't contribute as much to the stats as others. Many might have not even seen the pre-Chrome (or pre-Firefox) world. 3. Orkut was huge in India, Gmail and Google Search are bigger. Google has been pushing users to move to Chrome for a better experience for a long time now. That would have seen significant clickthrough especially because internet speeds have only recently started to pick up in India. Making the need for a 'better experience' more paramount. 4. Not enough business machines. Indian corporate world is not as highly computerized as North America or Europe. Indian Governmental Offices are way behind. While machines in western offices may bring about a significant increase in IE usage there, they will have lesser weight in India.

Poking around by individual country the only large one I found where Chrome leads is India. Anyone have sauce on why Chrome is so popular there? Are they big enough to skew the whole world?

geon 14y ago

> why Chrome is so popular there? Could it be because it has to run on cheap hardware? Is there any more lightweight browser?

noahc 14y ago
Ive found uzbl to be pretty good and lightweight. http://uzbl.org/ http://uzbl.org/
Wilya 14y ago
I don't think Chrome is especially lightweight. It tends to be optimized for speed by using as much resources as available. It might be better than IE in that regard, but it doesn't have any huge advantage over firefox.
Marwy 14y ago
Opera, of course.
mappu 14y ago
Dillo 3, and h3v. Non-graphical: links, w3m. Other 'light' webkit shells: uzbl, Midori, Arora

slig 14y ago

I don't know in India, but in Brazil, Google has been running TV ads about Chrome in prime time for a while. Maybe they're doing that there too.

blntechie 14y ago

Not sure this is the reason but Google advertised Chrome heavily in India in addition to the Google properties which are themselves very popular in India. They did advertisements in prime spots in TV, newspapers, other popular Indian websites etc. That could've definitely contributed. Also it's nice to see that Firefox is not lagging much behind Chrome in India. Regarding your question on population, not sure how big is the Indian internet population. I would say 5% of the country(total pop. 1 bn approx) uses Internet regularly. Not sure how much that skews the data.

abrahamsen 14y ago

On the other hand, the only region where Chrome is not leading MSIE, is North America. In Europe, Chrome has a small lead. In Asia, a medium lead. In South America, a large lead. In Africa, both are dwarfed by Firefox. One possible unfounded speculation would be that it is connected to the age of the widespread adoption of the Internet. In North America, most users have likely been on the net for a long time and therefore use older, more established technology. In India, Internet access is likely a new thing to many people (and businesses), and they are therefore less "invested" in older programs.

femto113 14y ago
Actually IE has huge leads in South Korea and China, who are among the top internet users. The Microsoft blog post linked above has the root cause here: StatCounter has outsized representation for India and Turkey, both which see heavy Chrome use, and doesn't adjust its overall numbers to account for this (a fact which they are open about, but it diminishes the relevance of their overall number).
- zizee 14y ago
  And what is going in in Australia? http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-AU-monthly-201105-201205 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-AU-monthly-201105-201205

mayanksinghal 14y ago

I think I will attribute it to the following things: 1. Google had a huge advertising campaign to promote Chrome. It was unique and nothing like has been done for any other browser ever. 2. Majority of internet users in India are young. The mom's, dad's and grandmother's browser, I hypothesize, doesn't contribute as much to the stats as others. Many might have not even seen the pre-Chrome (or pre-Firefox) world. 3. Orkut was huge in India, Gmail and Google Search are bigger. Google has been pushing users to move to Chrome for a better experience for a long time now. That would have seen significant clickthrough especially because internet speeds have only recently started to pick up in India. Making the need for a 'better experience' more paramount. 4. Not enough business machines. Indian corporate world is not as highly computerized as North America or Europe. Indian Governmental Offices are way behind. While machines in western offices may bring about a significant increase in IE usage there, they will have lesser weight in India.