
Chrome to take No. 2 browser spot from Firefox - canistr
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9220396/Chrome_poised_to_take_No._2_browser_spot_from_Firefox
======
ajross
Less important IMHO than Chrome vs. Firefox vs. IE is the fact that we now
find ourselves in a world where there are _three_ serious competitors for
browser mindshare instead of one dominant one. That makes collaboration on
standards a winning strategy instead of a losing one: any two browsers can
agree on something and push it with majority support, pulling the third along.
When it was IE vs. the world, the existence of a standard (a sane standard,
anyway) that could be implemented by its competitors was a losing stratagy for
MS.

Bravo!

~~~
fl3tch
Or it could mean that each browser effectively has veto power over any
innovation. If developers know that 25% of their visitors will be using a
browser that doesn't support a particular standard or technology, that may
prevent them from implementing it... at least "for now". That will prevent
widespread adoption, thus justifying the outlier browser to never support it.

~~~
tomjen3
That depends on the feature in question.

Some features, like SPDY, can be implemented even though not all the browsers
support it -- which means that those that don't will find that their users
think their browser is slow.

Some features can be emulated with things like long-polling.

And some (WebGL) can't.

I doubt you will be right about those features that can be replaced or
emulated but you are properly right about those that can't.

Then again every day we choose to exclude some customers (you only speak
Japanese? Well sorry then).

~~~
throwaway32
I doubt many sites are going to bother with all the complexity of implementing
and utilizing SPDY when only chrome supports it. To see significant advantage
with SPDY vs something like long-polling you need to build your app around it,
and if you need to support long-polling methods anyways, not very many sites
are going to bother.

~~~
nl
I think you are confusing SPDY[1] with WebSockets[2]. SPDY is Google's
experimental replacement for HTTP. You don't build your app around it at all -
from the application layer it _should_ be mostly invisible.

SPDY can be implemented as an Apache module[3] which could be used only when
the browser supports it.

It is true that WebSockets replace long polling, but there are plenty of
libraries that abstract the differences out nicely.

[1] <http://www.chromium.org/spdy> [2]
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebSocket> [3] <http://code.google.com/p/mod-
spdy/>

------
KevinMS
Doesn't it bother anybody that Chrome is made by ad company?

The way I see it, if everybody started using ad blockers like I do, google
would implode almost instantly. So how would they combat that? Control the
platform for viewing the web and be positioned to kill ad blockers if it ever
became a problem.

Would you buy a DVR controlled by a television network? That would be insane,
as soon as DVRs ate too much into their revenues they would just kill the
skipping feature.

But because of the abundance of chrome fanboys, this is just what is
happening, and everybody is looking the other way.

A little while ago we had a big company doing everything they could to control
the "personal computer" platform, even evil things, and illegal things, and
now there's another company trying to control the internet as a platform and a
lot of you hackers are eating it up, I'm just baffled.

~~~
chalst
_Doesn't it bother anybody_

A little, but do be aware that (i) Mozilla is 83% financed [ _] by search
royalties from that same ad company, and (ii) Chromium has a somewhat
independent developer community

Making money from ads is also not evil: you are probably served by a local
newspaper which is probably both good for your neighbourhood and financed
mostly or entirely by ads. This stream of revenue comes with conflicts of
interest, but these can be handled better or worse. I think Google has done
pretty well in this; at least my criticisms of Google mostly do not lie here.

[_] [http://www.extremetech.com/internet/92558-how-browsers-
make-...](http://www.extremetech.com/internet/92558-how-browsers-make-money-
or-why-google-needs-firefox?print)

~~~
brador
For most people, myself included, it's not about the ads as such, it's more
the tracking that goes with it. I'd happily see ads all day if they didn't
track me, but they do, so I use adblocking. Should I unblock the sites I like?
Yes, I should, but it's just too much work so I leave it on permanently.

~~~
iand
If you could be sure the tracking was used only to present more relevant and
useful ads to you, would you change your mind?

~~~
brador
Yes, absolutely. I actually realize I'm missing a significant amount of
opportunity right now by not seeing Google ads for products I could make use
of, so yes. However, I don't want my IP or anything identifying me in
particular associated with my ads.

Potential opportunity here to make a special adblock which tracks user using
an anonymous ID code? Essentially acting as a trustable middleman in the
equation?

------
gkoberger
"Look, this is the world we wanted. And this is the world we made." - Mike
Shaver, VP of Technical Strategy at Mozilla

<http://john.jubjubs.net/2011/09/15/mike-shaver-thanks/>

------
Pewpewarrows
Even more interesting (if you project out further) is that by this time next
year, Chrome will have eclipsed IE to become the #1 browser in terms of market
share. But only if you continue to project on the exact paths that each of the
three are taking, which doesn't account for saturation or mindshare caps
whatsoever. Still, it's satisfying to imagine IE being overthrown in a year
from now.

~~~
Karunamon
Very satisfying indeed.

Unfortunately, what I foresee happening is home user market saturation
reaching 100%, but Chrome never taking a majority thanks to business types
(you know, the people still on IE6.) Too much reliance on ActiveX and AD and
being able to lock down the homepage and other things that get corporate IT
control freaks all hot and bothered.

~~~
jrockway
It's a "security" thing. Big companies pay Microsoft money in order to have a
"secure IT infrastructure" that "regulators" will like. Microsoft's lawyers
wrote some words that appeal to those folks. Google's stuff is free, and so
Chrome doesn't come with any guarantee that it won't single-handedly take out
the company's entire technology infrastructure.

Obviously this is very far removed from reality (you can read Chromium's
source code and audit yourself. IE? Nope.), but these people aren't operating
in the real world. IE is the best browser for the imaginary world that the
"decision makers" live in.

(On my work machine, running chrome.exe causes an alert to be triggered and
execution is denied. Of course, renaming it to not_chrome.exe allows it to
work fine. Secure!)

~~~
lallysingh
Hmm, an externally-audited "certified" version of chrome may be an interesting
product to sell. Web browsers are a primary source of risk exposure (next to
e-mail) for corporations. Slap on a few logos, auditors, and clip art of happy
people in suits, and you have yourself some corporate confidence.

------
zmmmmm
It is quite profound when you consider that Firefox has been mostly funded by
Google via the search page revenue deal.

If you take Firefox + Chrome and credit them both to Google (unfair in many
respects, I know) - Google can claim "responsibility" for the majority of web
browsing today. They have almost single handedly engineered a competitive
marketplace in the browser space (ok, unfair again to the Mozilla devs, but
it's still profound to me to contemplate it).

~~~
zobzu
Mozilla got the deal when Firefox was that big, that it was a juicy deal for
Google. Google won't make that sort of deal if there's nothing to gain.
They're capitalists, not a non-profit organization.

Don't get the deal wrong. Mozilla as a small non-profit gets a lot of money
for their size, but the deal still is the hell of a good deal for Google.

It actually played a major part into making Google the de-facto search engine
among the community that matters most, us, the techs, the geeks, etc.

------
bryanlarsen
Most people switched to Chrome because it's faster than the competitors, but
interestingly enough, it's now the slowest:
[http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browser-speed-tests-
firefox-7-...](http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browser-speed-tests-
firefox-7-chrome-14-internet-explorer-9-and-more)

We all win, because even if Chrome is the slowest, it's not slow.

~~~
draebek
Thanks, interesting link. I was surprised to see your comment since I keep
wanting to go back to Firefox, mainly for its better extensions, but find
myself sticking with Chrome because it feels faster to me.

Two things this Lifehacker article did not cover that are important to me:
creating new windows and creating new tabs. I do a lot of this. I haven't
timed it but if I had to take a guess I'd say Firefox is at least twice as
slow as Chrome at making a new window. I think that explains why Chrome feels
faster to me.

(OS X 10.6.8, Firefox 7, whatever latest stable Chrome is, in case anyone's
wondering.)

~~~
charlieflowers
Chrome without a doubt feels faster than Firefox to me. I think Firefox's
performance has degraded over the past 6 months or so. I can't prove it (just
anecdotal based on my experience), but it got so bad that I switched back to
Chrome (and have been loving it).

------
guelo
It's important for Mozilla to stay relevant and strong. When corporate
behemoths are going at it having a nonprofit who is only interested in the
good of the web with no ulterior motives keeps everyone honest.

------
joebadmo
I have to use IE6 at work, and I'm surprised at how much of the Web is simply
broken for me. It's kind of bittersweet.

~~~
jewel
Have you tried Google Chrome Frame? You're exactly who they made it for.

~~~
joebadmo
I am. Only since the recent release of admin-less chrome frame. Can't say I've
noticed much difference, unfortunately.

~~~
justincormack
Problem is people have to enable it on their sites, and probably dont. You can
use gcf: to force it though.

------
alttag
The same company also has Symbian as the leading mobile browser OS by a wide
margin [1], bases on page views. Not what I would have expected.

1: [http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-ww-
monthly-201009-20110...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-ww-
monthly-201009-201108)

~~~
gospelwut
Aren't non-Android/iPhone phones still wildly popular outside the U.S?

~~~
untog
Yep. The view that everyone is using smartphones is just the result of being
inside a US-centric bubble. Well, and parts of Europe too.

~~~
drivebyacct2
As is the view that Symbian is not a smartphone OS...

------
cooperadymas
I've shown Chrome to a lot of people, ranging from "fairly technical" to
"what's a web browser?" The response is a near unanimous "wow!" I don't think
any have gone back to Internet Explorer, although Firefox might have reclaimed
a couple.

~~~
notatoad
my experience has been the exact opposite. almost everybody i've encouraged to
switch has been turned off by a UI that doesn't look identical to IE. they
need the buttons to be where they are used to seeing them. hopefully the IE9
transition helps these people get used to a new UI, but i suppose most of them
will just not upgrade to that either.

~~~
asomiv
After seeing how all the ads and flash websites slow down my dad's Firefox
browsing experience, I tried to switch him to Chrome. After a while, he
switched back to Firefox by himself.

The reason? He uses the dropdown box in the location bar as a kind of
bookmarking mechanism. Chrome doesn't have such a location bar. And he's not
content with using real bookmarks, it has to be the location bar dropdown and
nothing else.

------
JohnTHaller
Important Note: This is based on StatCounter, which is definitely not
indicative of the overall web. Something like Net Applications gives a much
more accurate picture and shows Chrome at 15.51% at Firefox at about 22.57%:
[http://www.webmasterworld.com/r.cgi?f=145&d=4368971&...](http://www.webmasterworld.com/r.cgi?f=145&d=4368971&url=http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-
market-share.aspx?qprid=0&qpcustomd=0)

It does vary a lot by geographic region. Europe shows higher Firefox numbers.
And, if I recall correctly, Firefox is number one in a few countries (Germany,
Russia).

~~~
guard-of-terra
It is Opera that is #1 in Russia.

I'm not absolutely sure because Opera, Firefox and all the versions of IE
combined have a very close market shares, and yes, Chrome is running up fast
too. But I remember Opera held "the most popular single version of browser"
the last time I checked.

------
cpeterso
Chrome now comes bundled with the Adobe Flash updater. This is probably a
large contributor to Chrome's climbing popularity. Chrome is also bundled with
Google's other applications and with Skype (but I'm sure Microsoft will end
that).

[http://www.salsitasoft.com/blog/2011/09/23/wonder-how-
chrome...](http://www.salsitasoft.com/blog/2011/09/23/wonder-how-chrome-is-
growing-market-share-ask-adobe/)

------
evandena
As a long time (relative) Chrome user, I've recently switched back to FF. I
need video ad blocking (ESPN for example). I'm sick and tired of watching a 30
second video ad, followed by 15 seconds of content. Chrome cannot block video
ads do to the plugin being javascript. Firefox is native C code, so apparently
it can.

------
BryanB55
I dont care who is #1 or #2 as long as it isn't IE and IE just goes away
completely. I work in a real estate industry and it seems like so many of our
customers are still using IE7 and have no clue how to work a computer which
just makes it even more frustrating.

------
vsl2
I've often wondered how Mozilla's status as a non-profit affects its
prospects. I've heard that its tough sometimes to recruit and retain because
of the lack of lucrative exit possibilities for employees (e.g. IPO).

Don't know if Chrome is going to overtake IE, but it would definitely be good
to see it give it a go.

~~~
redthrowaway
The types Mozilla tends to attract are likely to be FOSS crusaders, who care
more about working on free software than lucrative exits.

Also, exits are _only_ a consideration for startup employees. 98% of
programmers are working for corporations that have already had their exit, and
so the primary considerations (as they are for employees everywhere) are
salary, benefits, and options. I can't see Mozilla being too far behind the
market on salary and benefits, and stock options tend to be pretty worthless
for the average employees anyway due to blackouts and whatnot.

~~~
zobzu
That's correct almost every Mozilla employee strongly believe in FOSS values,
but not just that. They all believe in the Mozilla mission and manifesto, aka,
each one I have meet so far wants an open web, and a fair future where we
don't have any kind of vendor lock-in.

Not only that, but also a choice on our privacy.

If either MS, Google, or any such company gets a large percentage of the user
base (75%?) again, the web is going to be locked and not very privacy oriented
again. Don't think for a second that Google cares much. They don't do evil,
but they'll do as bad as their business requires.

They do use their quasi monopoly right now to promote Chrome and it works
extremely well. Chrome is a very good browser but you may understand that such
growth is not due to that alone, in fact, being a good browser is only a
requirement, not the actual factor of the growth.

Unfortunately it will be used to enforce Google control over the web.

------
redthrowaway
Is this desktop-only, or does it also count the Chrome browser on Android? If
the latter, this could go a long way towards explaining Chrome's meteoric rise
relative to FF and IE, which lack mobile presence.

~~~
contol-m
The Android browser is not Chrome or Chrome-based.

~~~
redthrowaway
I'm stunned, but I just looked into it and you're right. Oddly enough, it's
actually Safari:

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 0.5; en-us) AppleWebKit/522+ (KHTML, like
Gecko) Safari/419.3

[http://www.infinitezest.com/articles/which-web-browser-is-
us...](http://www.infinitezest.com/articles/which-web-browser-is-used-in-
android.aspx)

edit: Downvotes ahoy! I'm just relaying the information I found when
searching. On the Anroid-DLS wiki, it gives a very generic "based on webkit"
answer, so that doesn't say much one way or t'other.

[http://android-
dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Android_FAQ#Q:_W...](http://android-
dls.com/wiki/index.php?title=Android_FAQ#Q:_What_browser_does_Android_ship_with.3F)

~~~
drivebyacct2
It's WebKit, but so is Chrome. "Safari" is merely in the user-agent string for
mobile website compatibility. Nothing about it is really Safari related.

Chrome will be coming to Android soon as per the notes made by the Chrome team
in the last month.

------
skeptical
While most of the people are discussing what each browser 'stands for' or its
main goals, we should not forget about simple practical aspects.

Apart from deals between mozilla and google, I much prefer to support the
mozilla foundations than google. And when on linux I actually use chromium
instead of chrome. Furthermore I even think the whole firefox concept focused
more on real features rather targeting the dumbest possible user as chrome
does.

But even considering all these aspects, I use chrome mostly because it has had
a clutter-free UI for a while, fires up much faster and has a proper
implementation of incognito mode. Like many people, I use a browser all day, I
cannot afford not to be pragmatic in here. If firefox catches up on these
important aspects, I will for sure move back. It does look like they got
finally they're act together and started to make major improvements. Let's
wait and see.

