Chrome Is the Third Double-Digit Browser 299
An anonymous reader writes "Google's Chrome has taken the 10% market share hurdle, according to Net Applications and is past 15%, according to StatCounter. It is interesting to see that IE is declining at an accelerating pace and IE9 Beta cannot, despite the massive marketing campaign, dent Chrome's growth, while Firefox is holding on to what it has. It almost seems as if IE9 will not be able to turn around the decline of IE."
IE9 beta? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would a beta of the browser stop the transition? It's clearly aimed at web developers and designers for testing, not at general populace. That's also where all the marketing is at. Actual users only see IE8 (if that!), and Chrome, of course, soundly beats it.
The only way to see if IE9 can turn the tide is to wait until it gets released (and rolled out to Windows Update, at least as optional update).
If you really want to compare the numbers, how about Chrome beta/dev installs vs IE9 installs?
I switched back to Firefox from Chrome. (Score:5, Interesting)
I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.
Chrome is nice, a bit under featured, poor ad blocking (although it has gotten better its still slower and not as good as firefox.
In general, Firefox is faster than chrome all around. Even on older hardware, Firefox scrolls better than Chrome.
Firefox's bookmark manager is much nicer. I loved how chrome syncs your bookmarks but now that FireFox has it built in as well, I'm plenty happy.
Firefox has better color management. Chrome nice but... It still has that slight sluggish feeling about how it renders pages.
The new Firefox betas are looking and performing very well, so well that I switched back from chrome.
Re:Here's a constructive comment (Score:4, Interesting)
Have Google or Facebook corrupted standards organizations? Threatened OEMs? Illegally abused monopolies to gain market share in other markets and lock out competitors? Massacred standards to create lock-in?
Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome. (Score:5, Interesting)
I too prefer Firefox because I don't trust Google. Chrome sends so much data to Google (every keystroke that you type into OmniBar) and I prefer not to give Google any of my data. Firefox has no such issues.
Issue with Chrome's ad blocking is that ad blocking in Chrome works by DOM modification and all the ads are downloaded before they're hidden. That also means that all the ad companies have your IP and browser fingerprint as well and that also means that you waste bandwidth downloading ads. Firefox, again, has no such issues because it filters actual requests.
Re:Realistic analysis of he daa (Score:5, Interesting)
This correlates to IE market loss, so it is reasonable to suggest that chrome users are abandoning IE.
The simple fact could be that Chrome does not require administrator privileges to install. Users at offices where we are not given admin rights can install Chrome over IE and use it without slogging through a helpdesk ticket for something IT deems unnecessary. This may account for the growth we see as users are looking for more freedom and the bells and whistles a more modern browser with the ability to install extensions without needing better permissions.
Perhaps we are seeing a leveling out as those who want a different browser are finally being exhausted and entering a "long tail phase".
Re:Browser support by sites (Score:4, Interesting)
It happens. An airline company had to access my banking account and it only worked in IE. I struggled a little to understand what was going on, since all that I got was a "problem connecting to the banking services - please retry", then called support and the bastards politely told me to fuck off like this:
-Hi, I'm trying to pay for my ticket and can't. I've tried using Firefox and Chrome.
-You must use IE.
-Yeah... I actually don't use Windows. Is there some other way?
-Click Start, then IE.
-I'm telling you I can't. Are you telling me there isn't any way that I can buy from you guys if I don't also buy a Windows license that costs more than the plane ticket I'm trying to purchase?
-Is there anything else I can help you with?
Then people ask how a reasonable, sane person turns into RMS. Dealing with this sort of crap on a daily basis.