
Google Chrome has 20% global market share - joejohnson
http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/07/01/google-chrome-has-20-market-share-firefox-in-its-sights/
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mindstab
Isn't the bigger news here that IE has dropped below 50% market share
(dramatically) for the first time in over a decade? It's dominance is kind of
over.

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pilif
_sigh_ \- the end users of the application I'm working on use 70%-90% IE
depending on the platform. I wish this would change, but I doubt it as IE
still is a major player in the enterprise market.

~~~
rmc
The great thing about IE being now a minority browser is that web developers
can now say "Oh you want IE6/7/8 support? Oh, that's a minority browser that
doesn't support recent things, we can't do that/will charge lots more/etc."

~~~
estel
Minority? Sure, if compared to _every_ other browser. But in that respect,
surely every browser is a minority browser?

~~~
rmc
No, IE/IE6 used to be a majority browser. It used to have 80%+ of the browser
share. You could not refuse it. Now, you can.

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joejohnson
I don't understand Google's game here. I thought Mozilla was being showered
with cash from Google? If Google is now betting on Chrome, are they going to
continue supporting Mozilla? Mozilla is a pretty small-budgeted non-profit and
I think they rely heavily on Google's support.

~~~
blumentopf
I know a lot of people in the Green Party here in Germany who deliberately use
Firefox because they deem it to be the most politically correct browser. My
impression is that a lot of them neither realize that Firefox is indeed
primarily sponsored by Google (which they consider evil), nor that
Chrome/Chromium is open source, just as Firefox. They prefer Firefox for
touchy-feely, not technical reasons.

So there's a market niche for a browser which comes from a sort-of neutral
entity, and I think Google recognizes that and that's why they continue to
pour money into Mozilla. Mozilla looks like a neutral entity, dedicated to the
good, while in fact it's almost a wholly-owned subsidiary of Google.

~~~
eneveu
Wow, people from the Green Party really consider Google evil? I wonder what
they would say, were Google not to invest in renewable energy, and in reducing
energy consumption * ... I can see how some people might be concerned about
privacy, but there are many more companies I would consider evil before
Google.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Energy>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google.org#Renewable_energy>

<http://www.google.com/green/>

*: reducing their energy expenditure is obviously not entirely altruistic. Powering data centers is costly. But still...

~~~
blumentopf
Good point. A lot of Green activists also abhor Apple even though Apple's
hardware products are best of breed with regards to avoiding eco-hazardous
materials (BFRs, arsenic in glass, etc). Their views are obviously not
entirely rational. :-)

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wccrawford
So the real question is: What did Chrome do differently than Firefox to gain
market share that fast?

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pnathan
It's fast.

It's fast.

It's fast.

Oh, and it pop-up blocks, adblocks, and flashblocks.

~~~
weavejester
The question was what Chrome does _differently_ to Firefox. Firefox had
adblocking before Chrome ever existed.

IMO Chrome:

\- Feels faster

\- Looks a bit better

Firefox, on the other hand:

\- Has better extensions

\- Has a better URL bar search function

I actually use Chrome nowadays. It turns out that the speed and looks of the
UI are important enough that I can put up with less polished extensions and a
slightly inferior URL bar.

I wish Google would make their URL bar better though. Surely it can't be that
hard to match in the middle of URLs rather than just matching from the
beginning? :/

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enjo
* - Has a better URL bar search function *

For me, it's the opposite. Chrome's search bar does what I want predictably
(run a Google search) where the awesome bar sends me all sorts of crazy
places. It's that feature alone that keeps me on chrome.

~~~
weavejester
I guess it depends on what you want to do. The Firefox awesome bar does a
better job at guessing what bookmarked or historical site you want.

For instance, if I type in "y" or "yc" in Firefox, then it correctly guesses
that I probably want "news.ycombinator.com", because it's a site I often visit
and one of the very few with "y" or "yc" in the domain name.

Chrome, on the other hand, seems to only match from the start of bookmarked
URLs. So "y" doesn't match, and nor does "yc". Instead it advises me to do a
Google search. On the other hand, if I type "n", then it does guess that I
want "news.ycombinator.com" (or "news.bbc.co.uk").

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dannylipsitz
I'm sold on Google Chrome, but it's frustrating that some sites aren't
available on Chrome and I'm forced to used Firefox and Safari from time to
time. Does that qualify me as a user of all three, thereby inflating the
statistics?

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marknutter
What sites aren't available on Google Chrome?

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zwentz
Just the ones that you rarely have to deal with, but you do _have_ to deal
with. Like your insurer's site, your bank's, if you're in college and you have
to take tests online, that too.

Bank sites are just terrible in general. Why is my least secure password
always on a bank site? Shouldn't they have the highest requirements as far as
security goes?

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rdtsc
Is is possible to spoof the user agent and fool the server into thinking you
user Firefox?

Some of those places just hard-code the possible choices of compatible
browsers, and that list is 5+ years old. Once in a while I still see sites
that advertise their support for Netscape.

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brudgers
Statcounter has tended to estimate Chrome's share higher than other sources.

[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Sum...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Summary_table)]

