

Chrome now the most popular browser - rocco
http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-monthly-201105-201205

======
kibwen
This graph is about a month old at this point, it should update with the
newest stats tomorrow. Until then, you can see the day-by-day stats for the
past month here:

[http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-
daily-20120531-2012062...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-
daily-20120531-20120629)

Here's another good one that splits the IE line into IE 6/7/8 lines, and the
Firefox line into 3.6/4/5+ lines:

[http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combine...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version_partially_combined-
ww-daily-20120531-20120629)

Also be sure to check out the plurality-browser-share-by-country view via the
world map:

[http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-
daily-20120531-2012062...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-
daily-20120531-20120629-map)

Granted, it's hard to know who to trust regarding browser market share stats.
But more data points are always useful.

~~~
danmaz74
Thanks for the links - it's incredible to see how much Chrome peaks during the
weekends at the expense of IE!

~~~
mindstab
It really demonstrates (imho) the technical lag of companies: During the week
people are browsing at work and it looks like many are still shackled to IE.
But on the weekend they go home and use what they want, and that is clearly
chrome. Kind of amazing to visualize at this granularity what pops out.

~~~
recoiledsnake
>But on the weekend they go home and use what they want, and that is clearly
chrome

At least some of that traffic comes from preinstalled OEM copies, which Google
pays the OEMs for having Chrome preinstalled as the default browser.

Also, it comes bundled with things like Java, Acrobat Reader,CCleaner, Divx
Player, RealPlayer, Avast and Flash etc., so if people just click next, which
most tend to do, they end up with Chrome on their machine. I think it used to
come with Skype before Microsoft bought it.

[http://mobilesociety.typepad.com/mobile_life/2011/09/outrage...](http://mobilesociety.typepad.com/mobile_life/2011/09/outrage-
adobe-flash-installs-chrome-during-security-update.html)

[http://www.ghacks.net/2012/02/26/avast-7-will-install-
google...](http://www.ghacks.net/2012/02/26/avast-7-will-install-google-
chrome-if-you-do-not-pay-attention/)

[http://www.osnews.com/story/25184/Adobe_Tricks_Users_into_Do...](http://www.osnews.com/story/25184/Adobe_Tricks_Users_into_Downloading_Installing_Google_Chrome/)

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

Not to mention heavily pushing Chrome on Google properties like the search
page, Youtube, Gmail etc. etc.

Google chat once hung in my Gmail tab in Opera, and when I reloaded it I got
the message which said something like "Slow browser? Switch to Chrome.."

So Google's effectively buying marketshare with their search profits to cut
out the middlemen like Firefox and Opera. Browsers like Firefox, Opera do not
have the resources to push their browser this way and get people to try them.

~~~
tysonjennings
Dude, have you ever considered doing anything other than cheerleading MS and
hating on Google. I have never seen a single post by you on here or Slashdot
that was not either defending MS or being negative towards Google in some way.
How pathetic.

~~~
recoiledsnake
I am sorry, I didn't know I was supposed to cheerlead Google and Apple and
hate on Microsoft on here like the hundreds of other commenters. I am sure HN
needs more of them.

Is there some place where this policy is listed on HN(apart from being obvious
in the "pathetic" moderation, story selection and flagging) so that I and the
few others who don't share your Google and Apple worship can pack up and leave
once for all and not subject you to the horrors of alternate opinions or facts
that you seem to find very uncomfortable and pathetic? Or maybe I'll just do
what you tell me to and go away, and you can worship your Gods in peace
without heretics getting your way.

I like how the many commenters that only submit comments and stories that are
heavily anti-MS and pro-Google/Apple are not pathetic but I am. I am sure you
find them awesome.

~~~
awakeasleep
Hey man the argument you seem to be a part of here (both sides) seems really
dualistic and considering how poorly concepts and events in real life fit
binary interpretations, I think you could reduce your stress by taking a
broader approach.

Book I loved on the subject: [http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-
Fifth-Edition/...](http://www.amazon.com/Language-Thought-Action-Fifth-
Edition/dp/0156482401)

------
judofyr
Akamai just recently released their statistics, which shows a completely
different picture: <http://www.akamai.com/io>

~~~
harshreality
Akamai is probably trying to identify unique sessions or clients, and showing
stats based on that.

Statcounter is tracking browser usage roughly by percentage of requests. They
do some corrections, for instance they try to account for Chrome's
prefetching.

More people (or more computers) might use IE as their default browser, but if
Chrome is responsible for more activity (requests), what's the more popular
browser?

~~~
dbaupp
_> Chrome is responsible for more activity (requests)_

Does anyone know if the prefetching/prerendering Chrome does is a significant
portion of web traffic? Because that could easily skew request-based
analytics.

~~~
kalleboo
Statcounter claim to adjust for chrome's prefetching, but they never said how
(headers?)

~~~
Tobu
Probably the page visibility API:
[https://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/pagevisibil...](https://developers.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/pagevisibility)

Headers wouldn't work, because a prefetch often turns into a page view.

Edit: their methodology is public. They use the aforementioned API, and
headers for the two other browsers that prerender (Firefox and Safari, who
rarely prerender because pages must explicitly configure it). Pages pre-
rendered and discarded would add 1.3% to Chrome page views if they weren't
discounted. Here is the StatCounter FAQ:
<http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#prerendering>

------
patrickg
Glad to see that the top three browsers use different rendering engines. Long
live diversity.

Edit: in the hope of good css/html5 conformance / no browser specific
programming like in the old days

~~~
magicalist
This is the most remarkable and best fact about the current browser shares,
yet everyone gets caught up in the cheerleading (and I'm just as guilty at
times).

It really is a great state for the browser market to be in.

------
JOfferijns
It might be noteworthy that Google said so as well on Google I/O.

Of course, they are not the most objective source, but they do have the whole
Google Analytics dataset.

(GA runs on about 55% of all websites:
[http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/traffic_analysis/al...](http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/traffic_analysis/all))

------
xiaoma
In both the US and China, IE is far ahead. But look at this Indian usage
graph:

<http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-IN-monthly-201105-201205>

------
dneb7
What's most interesting to me is that my biggest markets (North America,
English-speaking Europe, and Australia) are all still IE strongholds.

[http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-
monthly-201203-201205-...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-
monthly-201203-201205-map)

~~~
xiaoma
I wouldn't say stronghold. IE is still the leader but by a relatively small
margin in most English speaking markets.

The strongholds are China and Korea, where IE usage is well over 70%. In fact,
considering that China has the most internet usage of anywhere in the world I
have my doubts about the veracity of the world-wide graph. It probably
drastically undersamples Chinese numbers.

<http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-CN-monthly-201105-201205>

~~~
Tobu
StatCounter sees low usage from China (in page-views). The great firewall
certainly plays a role. I wonder if said firewall doesn't also play games with
the user-agent header, though.

[http://gs.statcounter.com/press/open-letter-ms#incorrect-
wei...](http://gs.statcounter.com/press/open-letter-ms#incorrect-weighting)

~~~
xiaoma
I don't buy it. I just moved here from China a couple of months ago, and if
anything I'd say 70% is an overly conservative estimation of IE usage. Both of
my banks, for example, were accessible _only_ through IE with an active X
plug-in which made it impossible for me to check my balance on my mac. The
same was true of many, many other sites. Much like the US was 10 years ago,
only really hard-core geeks were likely to have firefox or other alternative
browsers.

As for usage, I also don't buy that. Most people in China are online primarily
through their phones, but in first tier cities (which is still a gigantic
population), people have bandwidth that most Americans could only dream of.
Youku, for example, streamed 5 times the hours of video content as all of
Youtube last I checked. And Tudou (which it is merging with) was a competitor
on the same scale! In terms of page views, I'd be shocked if Amazon had as
many as Taobao. No US news portal approaches QQ. Actually, Tencet (owner of
QQ) is considering buying Yahoo!. The only way in which China's internet is
small is in the amount of money its users want to spend on content.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I disagree with your claim that bandwidth in 1st tier cities is anywhere as
good as in the states. At work, at home, and in the cafe my internet is always
slow, even when pinging local sites (Beijing). I'm always amazed when I go
back to the states to visit and I can use...Netflix at my sister's place.
Americans have bandwidth that we Beijingers can only dream of.

True about IE and banks, but its easy enough to use IE when banking online and
switch to whatever else you want.

I don't know what the numbers really are; I suspect IE use is still high but
might be lower in Beijing given all the Macbooks being used by the middle
class.

~~~
xiaoma
It sounds like you just have a terrible connection. I had a 10mb connection
for < 30USD/month and regularly streamed HD video, sometimes US video through
a VPN. At work was even faster. That was in Beijing up until this May. It
looks like I'd have a free upgrade up to 20mb if I were still there!

[http://battery-pack-adapter.com/beijing-unicom-broadband-
spe...](http://battery-pack-adapter.com/beijing-unicom-broadband-speed-up-the-
highest-rate-for-free-today-to-20-m/)

As for banking, the problem was that their active X component was a .exe
download. Even with IE, it wasn't doable on a mac. ICBC did claim to have a
mac app in the works, but I didn't see it before leaving.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Terrible connection in one location could just be a fluke, but in more than
three locations? We've been thinking about upgrading our link, but many of our
problems at home are that entire sites don't work, especially at night when
internet use is very popular.

China is still not as wired as the states, South Korea is much better and
could be considered to excede the states, even countries like Thailand and
Indonesia provide much better bandwidth when I visit (and no GFW to boot!).

------
femto113
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
> why Chrome is so popular there?

Could it be because it has to run on cheap hardware? Is there any more
lightweight browser?

~~~
Wilya
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.

------
dennisgorelik
According to Google Analytics for my web site (postjobfree.com), top 10
browsers in the last 30 days:

1\. Internet Explorer - 40.02%

2\. Chrome - 21.33%

3\. Firefox - 19.99%

4\. Safari - 11.80%

5\. Android Browser - 3.74%

6\. Mozilla Compatible Agent - 1.33%

7\. Opera Mini - 0.70%

8\. Opera - 0.54%

9\. IE with Chrome Frame - 0.21%

10\. BlackBerry8530 - 0.03%

So it's not as rosy yet as we'd like.

~~~
tikhonj
Does that include both mobile Safari and desktop Safari in one category? I
would be curious about how many people use desktop Safari as opposed to the
mobile version.

~~~
dennisgorelik
Yes, both are in one "Safari" category.

Here's split by OS:

1\. Windows - 78.77%

2\. Macintosh - 8.39%

3\. iOS - 6.10%

4\. Android - 3.88%

5\. (not set) - 1.50%

6\. Linux - 0.69%

7\. BlackBerry - 0.30%

8\. Nokia - 0.12%

9\. SymbianOS - 0.09%

10\. Windows Phone - 0.08%

------
andyking
Didn't this happen last month?

~~~
Zirro
Different statistics-company, different sources. Market-share like this is
difficult to measure.

~~~
gouranga
This. I'm surprised that few people take that into consideration.

------
Tichy
But how is that possible? Because of the "choose your browser" dialog on MS
Windows?

------
nextstep
I'm switching back to Safari when Mountain Lion is released. The unified
search/address bar was the only thing holding me back.

~~~
rbreve
try chrome for iOS you can share your open tabs with all your devices

~~~
gpmcadam
This is a nice feature. But if this is the only thing keeping someone using
Chrome over Safari, then fear not: iOS6 is introducing this feature for Safari
in the coming Autumn.

<http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/#safari>

------
Aloisius
It's amazing what happens when you leverage your near monopoly in one area to
push a product in another.

------
d0vs
Hasn't this been debunked?
[http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2012/03/18/unders...](http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2012/03/18/understanding-
browser-usage-share-data.aspx)

~~~
harshreality
Yes, your link has been debunked. <http://gs.statcounter.com/press/open-
letter-ms>

~~~
azakai
Ironically, StatCounter's response commits some statistical fallacies, details
here

[http://mozakai.blogspot.com/2012/06/statcounter-and-
statisti...](http://mozakai.blogspot.com/2012/06/statcounter-and-
statistics.html)

I don't know which source of browser market share is more reliable - no one
does, really - and StatCounter made some valid points as well in their
rebuttal. But to see them misunderstand statistics like that is cause for
doubt.

------
eragnew
yes, but remember, a new version of safari (with new JS engine) is coming out
soon, at least to my understanding

------
ericingram
Thank god.

------
recoiledsnake
Wonder if this will allow Microsoft in Europe to get rid of the EU imposed
browser select dialog at first boot.

~~~
abrahamsen
Doubt it. It is the market share of MS Windows, not MSIE, that makes tying a
legally questionable practice.

~~~
Gustomaximus
I seem to recall it expires at a certain date and would have to be renewed.

Today they do have a case to argue that their OS dominance doesn't guarantee
browser dominance. It is very different from when this complaint was made as
there is healthy competition without the browser select screen. But personally
I would like to see it stay.

~~~
Jyaif
It doesn't guarantee browser dominance anymore precisely because of the select
screen.

------
mitchi
Chrome, the 1 gig of ram browser that everyone just loves.

~~~
mertd
If the memory is going to go unused otherwise, why the hell not?

