Chrome racing Safari for third spot in browser usage

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Jos

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It appears that last week's release of Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux systems has given the Google developed browser a healthy boost in market share. According to NetApplications' latest measurements, which are based on the browser habits of 160 million unique visitors each month to 40,000 partner sites, Chrome outpaced Safari to become the third most popular browser behind IE and Firefox earlier this month.

Of course this is an important milestone but in reality it amounts to just 4.4% of the browser market -- barely edging out Safari at 4.37%. Both browsers are still well behind Internet Explorer which sits under 64% and Firefox at around 25%. That said, it has taken five years for Mozilla's browser to get where it is today and going by these numbers the one year old Chrome is on a rising path.

The recently introduced extensions support in the beta and developer releases may have a bigger impact in terms of market share once it is officially rolled out to the final version. I for one was enticed enough to make Chrome my default browser and have been using it almost exclusively for the last week or so. While the selection is still rather limited, extensions seem to work really well and haven't impacted the browser's fast performance.

On a final note, just to offer some additional facts, looking at our own logs we were surprised to see Chrome usage grew 2.5% among TechSpot readers in the last month while Internet Explorer and Firefox saw a respective drop of 10.83% and 7.45%. Their total share stands at 43.42% for IE, 41.1% for Firefox, and 7.92% for Chrome.

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Must mean that Techspot readers are at least twice as likely to know about Chrome as the average person ;-) Most non techies that i know have never even heard about it before. Google does seem to rely more on word of mouth for its products then i would have expected from the company that supports more Ads then anyone else in the world ;-)
 
slh28 said:
I'm surprised and disappointed that 43% of "tech" fans use IE...

I would be interested in hearing what you think is less "techie" about using Ie8. It is really not that bad and since they added "extension" support i can configure it almost the same way i have firefox. Each browser out there has its pros and cons, but your generalization is equivalent to saying something like "all non linux users are not real techies". We know that isn't true, and that many techies are also gamers who choose to run windows for better game support (among other reasons).

Note: I am not a fan boy and am typing this from Firefox running within Red Hat Rel 5 (linux) at the moment. But i am open to giving any software a fair shot at winning my loyalties and do use IE on some of the machines i work on (like the Windows Terminal server that i need to use for work that firefox had major issues on because of the multiple instances on different user logins always running updates that conflicted or had permissions issues - firefox in that case was very very annoying)
 
I'm as curious as compdata on what slh28 said. My order of preference on browsers (on Windows) is Chrome > IE8 > FF > Opera. If I were to make a suggestion to a non-techy person about what browsers they should use I would recommend FF > Chrome > IE8. Once you develop good browsing habits IE8 really isn't an unsafe browser to use, but until you do it's definitely a gateway to browser hell.
 
Guys, I have been working in the IT market for a while now, I have several qualifications under my belt and I have seen these browsers grow, and I will admit IE8 is a hell of a lot better than IE6 or 7 but it still sucks compared to FF or Crome or even safari come to think of it. If all you need is to browse to the odd website sure its fine at that but any heavy java script it just freezes on low end systems, in my case I've even found websites designed to crash IE! fair enough FF is a pain on a terminal server if not setup right but done right then no one has permissions to update it except admins then it never gets confused! anyway my point is, is that I really have been arround since windows 95 and further and i must say . . . IE SUCKS!
 
I agree with some of you guys that IE8 is actually ok, in comparison to IE6 and 7 anyway. But I'd like to see a split of that 43% so I can rescind/reaffirm my earlier statement.

@compdata, I think the correct generalisation is "all real techies have at least tried linux" :)
 
Using Firefox since 04 and been happy with it (Thunderbird as well). Don't see myself switch to Chrome (already utilize Google enough :| ) or back to IE again, gotta stay diverse :) . Maybe I'll give Opera a shot one of these days /shrug.
 
i even use chrome in my company, unfortunately some web based software that my company runs is not supported well :(

nevertheless i enjoy my synced todo list that is linked to my android and my home pc as an extension on chrome os. my synced bookmarks, in combination with my google account.

this really gives you the feeling that you are working with one pc at different locations. i even have it synced with my laptop and my web book so this is so great for me.

i like the extensions... heard from a friend that he liked chrome but didn use it due to the lack of extensions... so guess lot of ff users will switch. ie explorer is only an escape route for my company tools that are way back in terms of being cool :D

so hohoho... and remember chrome is really cool for personal use and don't hesitate it is extremely intuitive in use and you only have one bar so you have more space for the other stuff like adds :D

and hmm yeah its fast
 
If you want to get around the net fast, use chrome.

Not so fast, but lots of extensions mozilla.

Microsoft are in there own (would like to say little but) big world with internet explorer. Like to give headaches to web developers.

Safari has taken a big step with personal server integration in there latest browser.

My view is;

mozilla is good but not fast enough (extensions are great but for what I want like email notifications you can get other 3rd party apps).

IE, do not comply with W3C web standards "and for that reason, I'm out!"

Safari, extensions are ok, good server integration (but nothing that can't be achieved through the likes of logmein to access all your content on your pc remotely).

Google became a popular browser because of their simplicity, nothing on the page other than your search input and button. That simplicity is appearent in Chrome, the result a lightweight superfast browser, cant recommend it enough.

If you want to get around the net fast, use chrome.
 
is just that offices and schools use IE and many other people that dont know much about IT just use what was given to them like the crappy and slow IE
i think chrome is pretty simple but i still think that mozilla is very good and fast
 
As someone who's trapped with IE 6 on a Win XP SP2 machine at school (they're claiming IE 7 doesn't work right and don't even talk about IE 8):

Thank God for Firefox Portable (and the recently released Chrome Portable)
 
w00t go google chrome! I am an avid apple hater, and I hope safari drops its spot over to google! Anyway, google chrome just looks cooler.
 
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