
Chrome 15 Is Now World’s Most Popular Browser (Version) - twapi
http://browserfame.com/321/chrome15-most-popular-browser-worldwide
======
Maro
"If we consider all versions collectively, Internet Explorer continues to rule
the world with around 40% usage share. Chrome and Firefox have 24.75% and
26.15% usage share respectively."

~~~
DanielRibeiro
Another way to see this: Firefox and Chrome together rule over IE.

Made me smile.

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asmosoinio
Something that this highlights: I really like it how I usually have no idea of
what version of Chrome I am running.

~~~
g3orge
Chrome updates itself automatically, so you probably running the latest
version.

~~~
jrockway
And what number is that?

~~~
Achshar
omahaproxy.appspot.com

this lists latest versions on every platform for every channel.

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wwweston
As someone who's uneasy about how much influence Google's gaining, I switched
back to Firefox for about a week recently.

FF8 seems better than previous versions as far as performance goes, but Chrome
still seems to be the king, and as a dev I spend so much time on the web it
really matters.

~~~
magicalist
I prefer Chrome's dev tools, but there have been really nice speed
improvements in Firefox 9 and 10 you should try out if you're thinking about
giving up on it.

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rplnt
These stats are absolutely inaccurate. According to their FAQ:

 _"We do not manipulate the data in any way. We do not collate it with any
other information sources. No artificial weightings are used. We simply
publish the data as we record it."_

Yet, 25% of their hits are recorded in the United States. Their recordings are
not distributed in a same way users are. Data should be weighed up/down
according to how much data they got from a region, how many people live there
and what is the Internet penetration. I think that the graph (and not just
this one) would look VERY different. Conclusion: Title is misleading. You
can't say something is world's _whatever_ when you have data from four
countries.

edit: Inaccurate in the context of how they are interpreted.

~~~
aodhan
Hello,

Thanks for your comment. I'm from StatCounter and would like to address your
concerns.

Weighting stats means that the stats are only as good as the weighting
methodology used. If the weighting data is inaccurate or out of date, then it
renders the data completely incorrect. For these reasons, we choose not to
weight our data in any way and instead we report is as we record - other
commentators can, however, weight the data as they wish.

I'm not sure why you think we only have data from 4 countries. We have a very
large global sample size of over 15 billion hits a month. You can view the
country break-down here: <http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#sample-size>

~~~
rplnt
I understand that it is not really possible to make it perfect. And I also
understand why you share raw data and it's probably the best way to do it. I
just wouldn't make such strong conclusions from it.

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maxklein
Google is making a huge shift from dominating search to dominating the browser
and the mobile OS, which have basically become the platforms on which most
modern technology is going to be built.

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ck2
_These stats are based on the calculation of StatCounter.com_

In other words more people on Firefox use ghostery and adblock so they never
load statcounter in the first place.

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Splines
Here's the actual graph, the image in the linked article is terrible to look
at.

[http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-
weekly-201132-...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-
weekly-201132-201149)

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derekdahmer
What's just as amazing is in just _two weeks_ , about 95% of Chrome 14 users
'switched' to Chrome 15. That same transition from IEX -> IEX+1 probably takes
two years.

That's the power of transparent, automatic updates.

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z92
The real news is IE share, worldwide, is now only 40%!

~~~
guelo
So we're trading a browser from a company with a desktop monopoly for one with
a web search monopoly. I'm trying to get excited here. It's a shame Firefox
couldn't win, but it's tough going up against a determined multibillion dollar
behemoth, especially when they get to leverage their monopoly (sound
familiar?) by advertising on one of the world's most popular webpages,
google.com, for free.

~~~
chrislomax
I too would have liked Firefox to win but I think it's nothing to do with
advertising the reason for Firefox declining and it's simply that Firefox has
lost it's mojo. From version 4 they killed their browser.

They may have redeemed themselves recently but I wouldn't care to look, Chrome
picked up where Mozilla left off. Chrome is a fantastic browser and I never
have issue with it. Firefox 4 and 5 used to crash at least once per day. If it
wasn't crashing then the ram usage was spiralling out of control.

I would rather put my trust in Google than Microsoft, I believe that Google
have the interest of a faster more up to date web than Microsoft do and I go
with their values.

~~~
icebraining
I'm a Google fanboy, but I'm not sure if I want them to have a majority in the
web browser space.

While they do move faster than MS, they also seem to have an habit of working
on something internally, then one day they announce the feature in Chrome,
dump a library to the other browsers and expect them to just integrate it. And
since they control the biggest websites, there's immediately an unfair
pressure; "Oh, you don't want to use SPDY? Well, then your browser will be
slower on Google sites than Chrome" (they don't _say_ \- or probably even
think - that, of course, but it's true)

Mozilla talks a lot about their development and seems to be more interested in
a better web, and not just a better browser.

~~~
chrislomax
I kind of agree but I think in another respect they have looked at an ageing
protocol and made it better. They may not have consulted with everyone but it
also doesn't mean that everyone will implement or agree with what they are
doing.

They are not forcing SPDY on people but I am looking forward to an integration
into IIS when it does happen.

They have created something in a hope that it does standardise the way we make
web requests.

Microsoft actually did this without telling anyone years ago, at least google
is open about it.

[http://osdir.com/ml/mozilla.devel.netlib/2003-01/msg00018.ht...](http://osdir.com/ml/mozilla.devel.netlib/2003-01/msg00018.html)

~~~
icebraining
Sure, but being better than a convicted monopoly abuser isn't a badge of honor
;)

~~~
seanp2k2
It could be worse -- Oracle could have a popular browser. Error: OHTTP 419:
please insert coin to continue request.

~~~
seminal
LOL

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tzury
Should be 15+ as this morning, my Ubuntu's update manager got chrome 16 for me
(and many others, Linux, Mac and Win users).

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thenotself
All that these stats really show is that version distribution is the least
fragmented on Chrome, which was the first to implement silent updates and
supported it since the beginning.

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Pedrom
It's interesting the different trends among browser versions. For Chrome when
a new version comes out the previous one die almost immediately but IE users
tend to keep their version for a long time. As a web developer I hate that :(

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toddmorey
Since Chrome quietly updates, how do you think they'll handle updates that
have significant UI changes? I guess you can have new versions have some
features opt-in? That's what they've done with the GMail transition.

~~~
masklinn
> Since Chrome quietly updates, how do you think they'll handle updates that
> have significant UI changes?

They'll do it, and if people disagree, well, too bad.

> That's what they've done with the GMail transition.

On the other hand, that's not what they did with the Reader transition, or
when they broke the "+" operator in search.

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herrherr
For comparison have a look at the getclicky stats:
<http://getclicky.com/marketshare/global/web-browsers/>

They seem to be pretty close.

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mhartl
I use the Firefox AwesomeBar to navigate the web. Is there an equivalent for
Chrome? Chrome always seems to find searches I don't care about ahead of
bookmarks or history.

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deathwarmedover
A bold title, followed by the caveat at the end "These stats are based on the
calculation of StatCounter.com, and the actual browser market share may differ
from these."

~~~
markokocic
Since Chrome doesn't have real AdBlocker, it is logical that stat counter will
show its number accurate, while Firefox share will be underestimated due to a
large amount of users blocking StatCounter and similar tracking services.

~~~
deathwarmedover
I'd love to see statistics on how many people use AdBlockers and/or Ghostery
vs the wider audience that would be picked up by StatCounter and friends. I
would be surprised if they made a large dent in the statistics though.

~~~
markokocic
We can only speculate on that number. But point is whatever percent that is,
they are likely Firefox users, since Chrome doesn't do real blocking of those
sites.

If the number of privacy concerned people is only 5% (a guess as good as any
other guess), add that number to Firefox percentage, and the picture looks
quire different.

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davidjohnstone
Chrome has had the most popular unique user agent string for a while. The
latest version of Chrome with Windows XP is always first, followed by Chrome
on Windows 7.

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jjude
and it still doesn't support rss like other browsers

~~~
Flenser
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nlbjncdgjeocebhnmk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nlbjncdgjeocebhnmkbbbdekmmmcbfjd)

~~~
Tomis
So what you're saying is that a new Chrome user, in order to get functionality
that other browsers have out of the box (I'm thinking of Opera, I'm biased
like that), have to start digging after extensions.

That's fine and dandy for experienced PC users like you and me but what about
regular people? Housewives, pensioners, working people who want to use a
browser but don't have much time to invest in learning its intricacies.

History has shown that people can live with screwed up technology for a long
time without looking for improvements because they think it's normal or
they're used to it (floppy disks for file transfer in the 21st century, for
instance) and sometimes new technology or features have to be forced upon the
user for them to take it up. In the case of Chrome, regular people get a
truncated version of what a browser can do (no significant difference in
features from Internet Explorer except speed). This creates a large entry
barrier for regular people.

Do you think your average grandpa using Chrome (or Firefox, for that matter)
will have a revelation at some point, thinking "gee, I'd really like to have
mouse gestures, they would make my life so much easier for my poor hands"? Or
"wow, I'd sure like a speed dial whenever I open my browser so that I can go
with one click to the pages I most often use" (no, I don't want "most visited"
as chosen by Chrome, I want speed dial). No, of course it's not going to
happen; grandpa has never heard of RSS, mouse gestures, speed dial, and so on;
someone (or something) has to explicitly tell/show him these features so that
he becomes aware that they are possible.

I also have a personal beef with the people who thought that on startup Chrome
should have "open the home page" as default option instead of "reopen the
pages that were open last". This is the most retarded default option I could
think of in our day and age - if someone wants to get rid of their tabs then
they will CLOSE THEM. It's that simple. Just because I have to close the
browser does not mean that I finished what I was doing and that I want my tabs
closed. Opera got this right more than 10 years ago but some people still have
the Internet Explorer 6 mindset. It's as if all your Gmail messages were
marked unread when you logged in to your inbox because hey, it's a new
session.

TL/DR - extensions are a poor substitute for built-in functionality in a world
where the majority of users still are regular users (non-tech savvy). Grandpa
Joe will not go digging for extensions.

~~~
Goronmon
_That's fine and dandy for experienced PC users like you and me but what about
regular people? Housewives, pensioners, working people who want to use a
browser but don't have much time to invest in learning its intricacies._

I think you are vastly over-stating the cross-section of the population that
both has no idea what a browser extension is, yet knows about RSS and cares
about using it.

~~~
Tomis
That was my point. If they don't have that functionality in the browser they
certainly won't go looking for it. If it's built-in there are ways to make the
user aware of it (startup tips, random info pop-ups or even suggestions from
more advanced users - "did you know you could do X very easily?").

~~~
davidcollantes
I agree with you. I am very careful about which extensions I install because I
dislike clutter (one of the many beauties of Chrome is it's simplicity). Also,
I do not want to end up having extensions that might disappear. If the
extension functionality were part of the browser, that would not be a problem.

I am sure those who used Firefox with all addons/plugins would love
extensions. For me, extensions are to 'extend' the browser functionality, not
to fill-in for the lack of functionality the browser should have.

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rob08
No Safari?

~~~
dmooney1
You can see Browser-share as opposed to Browser-version share if you go to the
statcounter page linked above. Webkit is around 6% and Chrome is 27% making
WebKit ~33% and rising. All versions of IE are ~38.5 and falling. Firefox is
~25% and falling really slowly. Opera is <2% and rising really, really slowly.

