Chrome Hits 20% Share As IE Continues Slide 308
jbrodkin writes "Google Chrome's rise in popularity has been remarkably fast and it's just hit a new milestone: more than 20% of all browser usage, according to StatCounter. Chrome rose from only 2.8% in June 2009 to 20.7% worldwide in June 2011, while Microsoft's Internet Explorer fell from 59% to 44% in the same time frame. Firefox dropped only slightly in the past two years, from 30% to 28%. While other browser trackers show Chrome with a lower percentage, there's a reason: StatCounter tracks total surfing, not the number of users. It's the Web's power users who are pushing Chrome to new heights."
PC manufacturers and affiliate marketers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:PC manufacturers and affiliate marketers (Score:4, Insightful)
IE gets installed with every windows, and they get commission from installing windows.
Re:PC manufacturers and affiliate marketers (Score:5, Interesting)
Incidentally, I Installed Windows 7 recently and was asked to choose between Google, Yahoo and Bing as a search engine. No wonder Google wins everything when it gets listed twice like that [blogspot.com].
Re:PC manufacturers and affiliate marketers (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:PC manufacturers and affiliate marketers (Score:4, Funny)
Isn't it more accurate to say they get screwed over if they don't install Windows on every computer they sell?
Re:PC manufacturers and affiliate marketers (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, the consumer pays to install Windows. The PC manufacturer gets a commission on that.
Now *that's* some tortured logic! The PC maker pays to get Windows on their PCs. Other software makers (like Norton) pay the PC makers to include their software. I don't know if Google pays to have Chrome bundled or not, but if they do, this is very different from how it works with Windows.
MS does (presumably) pay to have the Office trial bundled, not that this has any bearing on browsers. But at least it's logically sound.
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But looking at it another way, in some sense Microsoft does 'pay' to get Windows installed by PC makers, because they offer OEM versions of Windows to them at a significantly reduced cost.
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Google pays to bundle chrome with everything but virtual kitchen sinks nowadays. Almost every piece of trial/free with hope of purchasing pro version - kinds of software packages seem to come with chrome installation bundled and offered along installation of software you want.
Frankly, it's getting annoying. The peak moment of rage came when I was installing stuff to a new Asus Eee PC yesterday, messing around with video codecs to get h.264 and x.264 decoding work in 720p without dropping frames, and tried d
Re:PC manufacturers and affiliate marketers (Score:4, Interesting)
I can understand why that might be annoying, but I would hardly count Chrome among other installer crap-ware. Chrome is by far the fastest browser I've ever used. It is quite snappy and responsive. It beats out Safari and Firefox- which has become, for me, unusably bloated - on an iMac Core 2 Duo by a pretty sizable speed margin. Since its layout engine is the same as Safari's, this must mostly be due to V8, which is lightning fast. Pretty amazing work, honestly. I can see why it's eating away at Microsoft's market share.
If you submit, those pesky installation questions will disappear. I submitted, and I'm happier now. If I'm a Google shill, I can deal with that.
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Just last week I was in a managers office and noticed Chrome on the desktop. One of the companies applications tried to launch in Chrome while he tried to show me something and it default launched in Chrome. He didn't know how it got there.
I don't recall what it was that he installed but it was another example of an update to an existing program installing Chrome alongside. He had me remove it.
Re:PC manufacturers and affiliate marketers (Score:4, Insightful)
And since they track usage instead of users, that means Chrome's userbase is not 20%, like is usually calculated and what most people reading the headline will think.
Soccer moms and clueless uses are perfectly targeted by Google too. Like someone below in the comments mention, not only is Chrome pushed by manufacturers etc, but Google packs it with every download from them. Picasa, Google Earth and so on.. The real power users would always untick the unwanted software and think why is Google trying to push them y while you only wanted x. Google also pushes it on YouTube, Google homepage (if you browse in with IE) and their other sites. They're using all the evil marketing tricks in the book, like using soft language "oh that's ok" or similar instead of "yes" when asking if you want to install Chrome etc..
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And since they track usage instead of users, that means Chrome's userbase is not 20%, like is usually calculated and what most people reading the headline will think.
That's pretty spurious logic. Do you think Chrome users browse the web more frequently than IE or Firefox users do? And, if you do, why do you think that?
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That tracks with this table, [wikipedia.org] where StatCounter shows Chrome as having a higher marketshare than it does in other sources. So if those sources base their numbers on unique users rather than pageviews as the summary implies, then yes it seems reasonable to state that Chrome users browse more than other users.
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"Web power users? What does that even mean?"
Power users can Triforce! (runs)
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Better than IE (Score:3, Informative)
Better to see some Chrome installs out there because: it runs on multiple platforms, does a hell of a job in supporting web standards and is fast. Although it does crash on occasion, especially with web content. It also dies when you have 60+ Google Maps tabs open.
For me as a web developer I prefer to see more Chrome installs than IE, just it makes life easier. The only positive thing about IE is that they have gotten better at supporting web standards. Even though stuff that worked in IE 8 doesn't work in IE 9. and stuff made for IE6 and special modifications in IE7 still break IE8 and IE9. But I'm getting off-topic here.
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> The __only__ positive thing about IE is that they have gotten better at supporting web standards.
But is is a pretty important one, no?
Re:Better than IE (Score:5, Informative)
IE9 finally implemented DOM level 2 and otherwise change it to match other browsers. Previously the DOM has seen little change since IE5, which was good in 1999 but not so good now.
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As a web developer, it never ceases to amaze me when I design a web-site that works in nearly every browser *except* IE(any version). I typically have to budget as much(or more) time fixing a site for IE as I spent designing it in the first place.
In that case, you're doing it wrong! If you need to make the site work with IE, then you should design it to work with IE from the start. There's no shortage of information about what works with which browser.
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It really depends upon how chrome bit's in Android are counted with smart phones. Likely the big gain is simply Android based smart phones, so for Firefox really neither here nor there but for M$ youch, market share disappearing hand over fist. Of course next up will be the Android netbooks and Tablets with Chrome as default, those targeted at the education market could number in the hundreds of millions but there will be a bit of a face between Chrome and Firefox on those platforms, with poor old IE getti
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Sites like Google+ also work far better in Chrome than in any other browser. (It works in Firefox, but not as smoothly, and in Opera, bits are missing. Haven't tested the others yet.) Google offers a lot of free web services, and Chrome often gets the most out of them. No surprise its popularity is growing.
Firefox of course has the advantage of its huge number of extensions available. IE is not as bad as it was, but still not as good as the others. And though it pains me to say it, Opera is not as great as
It's the Web's power users who are pushing Chrome (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously? It's Google who just pushes their software. On our network, several users 'suddenly' had Chrome installed. If I remember correctly, it was bundled with Google Earth. None of them of course paying attention to the fact they got more than they bargained for. The very few "power" users - or in our case the people who just want to pretend they know anything about it, could install Google Chrome on their PC's without admin rights... Yes, Google's very sneaky with their setups. The only way to prevent
Google Evil (beta) (Score:5, Interesting)
>>It's Google who just pushes their software. On our network, several users 'suddenly' had Chrome installed.
Yeah. I wanted to put the Google photo screensaver on my mom's computer. So a quick Google search, and here it is - http://pack.google.com/screensaver.html [google.com]
So you click on "get google photos screensaver" and it takes you, not to a link to the download, but to a page for "The Google Pack" which has a bunch of checkboxes for various software options.
None of which are the screensaver. But Chrome is checked by default, as is Google Desktop. So a non-technical user might think that Google Desktop = hey, free screensaver. So they might download that. And get Chrome. (And all the other bloatware like Avast! antivirus found here:http://pack.google.com/pack_installer.html). I knew that it was probably part of Picasa, so I unchecked all of the bloatware options, and just downloaded Picasa, which indeed had the screensaver my mom wanted, and there you go.
But the point is:
1) Google is acting evil (if my mom had tried to do this herself, she'd be stuck with a horrible antivirus product - or two, there's two in the Pack)
2) Chrome installs are up because of their evil.
Giving free advertising to Chrome on Google.com is borderline evil, too. Leverage of monopolistic powers and all.
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Leverage of monopolistic powers is not evil, *abuse* of a monopolistic position is evil.
Do you really expect the Chrome team to be paying the Search team to put adverts for Chrome on Google.com? Do you really think that any other company wouldn't (doesn't) do the same thing? Now, if they refused to advertise other browsers, or tacked on a "But Chrome is better" tagline under each one, then I'd agree that they're being evil.
That said, I do agree that they shouldn't things as products that are only available
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Leverage of monopolistic powers is not evil, *abuse* of a monopolistic position is evil.
Not quite. Leveraging a monopoly is generally consider abusing a monopoly. Fortunately for Google regarding the topic at hand, they don't have a monopoly. But if they did, then tying Chrome to their monopoly service would be highly likely to run afoul of antitrust laws.
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Do you really think that any other company wouldn't (doesn't) do the same thing?
The difference is not many other companies use "Don't be evil" as part of their semi-official code of conduct: http://investor.google.com/corporate/code-of-conduct.html [google.com]
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Firefox used to be in the Google Pack. Was that evil?
Re:Google Evil (beta) (Score:5, Informative)
Giving free advertising to Chrome on Google.com is borderline evil, too. Leverage of monopolistic powers and all.
Sigh this again.
Google search does not dictate the terms by which people use it to search the web.
Google search does not have the sole product in the market, and users are free to use any alternative at any time without reprise.
Google search does not have a lack of viable competitors.
These are the terms which define a monopoly. People choosing to use Google search does not make Google search a monopoly, and pimping their other products on their page is not even remotely anti-competitive.
Google have ONE product that is a monopoly and that is internet advertising. You can apply the above rules to see:
Google does dictate the terms by which people run advertisements in a non-negotiable way.
Google does not have the sole product in the market, but advertisers are not free to use alternatives due to a lack of customer base by the alternatives.
There is no viable alternative to Google's advertisements due to a lack of customer base by the alternatives.
This is a monopoly.
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http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?campaign_id=229565125950&placement=emu&creative=tfa&keyword=brd [facebook.com]
http://www.amazonservices.com/content/product-ads-on-amazon.htm/ref=az_mm_pads?ld=AZPADSMakeM [amazonservices.com]
Those two both seem to be strong contenders and both have a large customer base. I think Google has a strong place, but I *don't* know that they are a monopoly.
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Google have ONE product that is a monopoly and that is internet advertising.
This monopoly funds all their other efforts to dominate other areas, including the search service they give away for free. They are acting much like Microsoft did/does with their desktop dominance.
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But the point is: 1) Google is acting evil (if my mom had tried to do this herself, she'd be stuck with a horrible antivirus product - or two, there's two in the Pack) 2) Chrome installs are up because of their evil.
Giving free advertising to Chrome on Google.com is borderline evil, too. Leverage of monopolistic powers and all.
I agree with 1) but I don't see 2) as evil. I mean ... how do you propose they tell people about Chrome. Google is an advertising company. Wherever they put a Chrome link you'd consider it an advertisement and a proof of their evil. So what can they do? Develop Chrome than keep it a secret? Make a blog post on their blog that nobody reads (except maybe 0.0000000001% of all Internet users). Even 1) would be OK - I have no problems with their own software - grandma will not use them, but they won't do any har
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You do know you can easily prevent this in newer flavors of Windows by preventing the executable from running? Pre-creating directories is clunky at best, and not a good way to go in a larger environment IMO.
Just use a Software Restriction policy to prevent it. Easily managed, and easily updated in case the EXE folder, or EXE name changes.
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Or better, figure out why so many of your users are deliberately installing a browser alongside the one you normally offer. So you force IE6 on them because of some intranet app. Great. Must you really make them suffer with it on everything else? Put another way: what reason is there to want to forcible prevent people from using Chrome (or Firefox or Opera or ...) if it makes them happier or more productive?
I wonder... (Score:3)
I wonder if this rise in popularity can be attributed to the Chrome ads on Google's homepage we've seen in the past...
The article did not provide much analysis but rather a "news report" style...oh well.
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You know that Chrome is actually better then Firefox at a fair bit of stuff, right?
Not to mention that if an enterprise wants to deploy something that isn't IE, Chrome provides some tools to do that while Firefox tells them to screw off. One of these is better for market share then the other.
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Dude, there's a Chrome billboard at my local train station. They're aiming for the casual browsing populace.
google targets AGGRESSIVELY ie users. (Score:3, Interesting)
also the stats are a bit suspect. (I roll with firefox normally)
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The summary says "StatCounter tracks t
Re:google targets AGGRESSIVELY ie users. (Score:4, Informative)
You said it, as well as someone else above, and it goes like this: "Google is using its search monopoly to push Chrome"
Google does not have a monopoly in search. You can go e.g. to Bing with no consequences. Doing so will not prevent you from using any other programs, features of your hardware etc. The stuff that is online is just there. They do not need a specific search engine in order for them to be found or (nowadays) a specific browser to be viewed. You can type the address in the bar and navigate to your target directly (I know that is starting to change, but this is another story).
My point is, what Google is doing is different than, e.g. what MS was doing with Windows and IE6 and Windows Media Player. Not having Windows in the 90's meant you could not use your hardware properly (driver issues), you could not play most of the audio and video formats and you could not view a lot of websites appropriately.
Google is just exercising aggressive marketing strategies, that's all (and I don't like that either). But in this case, unlike 10 years ago, you have other options. Use them!
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Google should be able to advertise their other products on their sites and the fact they'll let anyone else advertise their competing products means they're not abusing their position. Win purely by making a superior product is ok in my book because it means all anyone has to do to compete is build a better product. I know that is a nearly impossible task f
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People just use the default thing thats given to them. Thats why Netscape failed.
Netscape failed because it was a piece of shit. It was so good at being a piece of shit that the developers attempted to fix things by doing a complete (100%) rewrite. Finally after YEARS the rewrite was done.. with market share already in the toilet.. those that rushed to return to netscape found that the new version was just as big a piece of shit as the old one.
Several patches later, it wasnt such a buggy piece of shit any more.. but by then it was too late. Poor market share and a bad reputation. Not
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I tried it now using a fresh install of IE9 (since I don't ever use it for anything) and first time I went to google I got a top bar asking if I'd like to change my home page to google, same size as their menu line with "Web Images Videos etc." and a small box in the upper right corner below the menu line "for faster video browsing, install Google Chrome". I answered no to the homepage question, X'd out the Chrome box, closed down IE. Opened up IE again, and now it looks exactly like Google in Chrome. So ye
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"for faster video browsing, install Google Chrome"
"for faster web browsing", of course.. mental typo
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"Surfing" (Score:2, Insightful)
Can we please stop saying 'surfing' and use 'browsing' instead? 'Surfing' just sounds silly.
It's the ADS (Score:2, Insightful)
StatCounter tracks total surfing, not the number of users.
Meaning that it's counting the ads and other stuff Firefox users are blocking.
Let's face it, Google thrives on advertising, it is the bread and butter of it's revenue stream and Google Chrome will never get even half of the ad-blocking capabilities Firefox users have.
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In a slightly related topic, I had been browsing without Flashblock on Chromium for a while because I had issues using the add-on, but there is a new one now that is quite decen
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I'm confused, if Chrome doesn't do ad-blocking then what's this? Are you saying that AdBlock for chrome is different in some significant way? If yes, please provide a citation.
Check out Ghostery for Chrome. It doesn't work reliably - reload a web page multiple times and it will block only a random subset of all the web-bugs on that page. The developers attribute it to a deficiency in Chrome's API and, last I checked, there was no expected fix from Google.
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Last I checked, adblock for chrome prevented _showing_ the add, but not fetching it from the server. Which means the ad impression gets counted.
Expect IE to rise (Score:2)
Many and I mean many businesses are coming up with plans to dump Firefox and use IE again thanks to Asa's big mouth. I read about them on slashdot all the time, and while some of you say it is an opportunity for Chrome, all I have to say is it is proof why you should only stick to Microsoft standards at work. No one ever gets fired for choosing them. ... end gripe
Either way IE 9.01 is now included by default with a Windows Update without a prompt so it's marketshare will increase. It may piss off a lot of u
Re:Expect IE to rise (Score:4, Insightful)
The main cause is the new release cycle. Asa's big mouth only helped it a bit.
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I doubt it, the overall trend of leaving IE is pretty strong but it might stabilize IE while accelerating Firefox' decline. Up until last month Chrome has grown almost only at the cost of IE, that may change now.
Firefox dropped the ball (Score:5, Insightful)
Firefox could have become the rock solid browser that "just works".
The only reason we have standards like those set by W3C is stability.
There is no need for rapid releases any more because the major problems have been solved years ago. I am still using Firefox 3.0 as my default browser and while I had to install Chrome because Google-Translator mysteriously stopped working, otherwise I had no problems with it.
Because of the good extension-system, Firefox could be a rock-solid browser while all the experimental stuff and new functionality is done in extensions.
But no. Mozilla decided that Firefox has to be like Chrome. Of course not really like Chrome because to get the advantages of Chrome would require a complete rewrite of Firefox, so Mozilla settled for a completely nonsensical release-policy completely with automatic non-wanted upgrades ("What is my computer doing now? Oh, my browser changed again!").
Mozilla should understand that the 90s are over and people are no longer buying a new computer every 2 years and upgrade their software even more often. The new features (ALL of them) are not needed in the default install. They could be tested using extensions but there is absolutely no reason any more to change ANYTHING just for change's sake.
What we need is at least one browser-alternative that aims at creating a bug-free browser instead of a perpetual usability experiment.
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Mod parent up!
Re:Firefox dropped the ball (Score:4, Informative)
Mozilla should understand that the 90s are over and people are no longer buying a new computer every 2 years and upgrade their software even more often. The new features (ALL of them) are not needed in the default install. They could be tested using extensions but there is absolutely no reason any more to change ANYTHING just for change's sake.
Compared to Firefox 3.0, Firefox 5 has significant performance improvements in its JavaScript and render engines. You can't reasonably implement those changes as an add-on because it will be too slow. You really are missing out if you're still using Firefox 3.0. Firefox 5 is faster and more capable.
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I'm using the same computer since the end of 2006 (an Intel T7200 CPU) and it's getting faster and faster.
The browsers I use are faster (FF4 is faster than FF3, FF5 looks as fast as FF4), the operating system is faster (I'm on Linux since 2009 coming from XP, I used to have a boot-to-Firefox time of 5 minutes, I get there in 1 minute now), the filesystem is noticeably faster (the ext3 to ext4 switch). Even the software I use to work is faster than it used to be (Java, OpenOffice, Ruby, PostgreSQL among the
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What we need is at least one browser-alternative that aims at creating a bug-free browser instead of a perpetual usability experiment.
Well then....Chrome. Seriously, it is smaller, faster, easier, with upgrades that don't change the experience. I gave up on Firefox once I tried Chrome. Firefox is still ok, but like IE, just too bloated, too many features I don't use.
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Firefox has been a real dog for a long time. Sluggish rendering, big memory footprint and lately strange design decisions and release cycles.
The *only* thing that has kept me using it is the NoScript addon. The rest, Chrome does much better.
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Actually, not to troll or anything, but IE9 feels much lighter and faster than Firefox. Personally, I'm using Chrome 95% of the time, including for development (their dev tools are almost as good as Firebug). I use IE9 from time to time but I open Firefox ONLY when I absolutely need it for Firebug (mostly Firebug plugins and to test).
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> because the major problems have been solved years ago.
That's the point. They haven't been. For example, the major problem of web sites not having a good way to describe non-document layouts is _still_ not solved.
Re:Firefox dropped the ball (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile, we had browser plugins working just fine to get non-HTML things like video and interactive applications on the web.
Right, like Shockwave, which only exists on Windows. Or Flash, whose 64-bit versions still are in beta and which still suffers all kinds of quirks and issues around hardware accelerated video decoding. Or Java applets, which are...well, it's Java.
There was a time when HTML did not support the use of images within a document. You had to use an external application to view them. Up until today we have to install (and update; my Windows machine at work nags me on every other boot with updaters for three different plugins) several different browser plugins to watch video, play audio and use interactive content. Now this is merging into the browser itself, which means: No more plugins to install, no more context breaking (focus grabbing etc.), and consolidated security and privacy management. There still is much work to be done. And there still are considerable security concerns. But at least in my opinion we are on the right path.
The funny thing is... (Score:2)
that one of the areas where if found chrome most useful is to read local (offline) documents. Starts faster than anything else for this purpose.
Redefining terms? (Score:3)
It's the Web's power users who are pushing Chrome to new heights.
So.. "power users" now equates to "people who have the most free time on their hands"? Because I really don't see how surfing a bunch of web page makes one a "power user". If anything, I'd think people who have no idea what they're doing, or who are just killing time, are far more likely to visit more web pages.
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Power users (Score:2)
"It's the Web's power users who are pushing Chrome to new heights."
I think that depends on the definition of power users. Because judging by customization and advanced features, Firefox or Opera would be better choices for power users.
Most Chrome users I know are the exact opposite of power users, they like Chrome because it's simple, it "just opens pages".
Nothing wrong with that if it works for you. But the point of tweaking and customizing a browser is not to make life more complicated, but to eventually
And from a non-commercial source (Score:5, Interesting)
Wikimedia browser share [wikimedia.org] gives Chrome at 15.6%.
(This is just one site, of course. But (a) Wikimedia has no interest in pushing the numbers (analysts' business model is selling out) (b) it's a top-10 general interest site used by normal people, not just geeks (c) this is worldwide.)
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They could be getting bribed to do it though. Or, maybe they just use different metrics and are drawing from different samples. Don't be so quick to assume the worst of everyone (or so quick to assume that just because someone is "non-commercial" that they're unbiased).
Re:And from a non-commercial source (Score:4, Interesting)
And even more important, unlike StatCounter and other junk, they do show users with properly configured AdBlock.
Chrome's AdBlock is crippled, it allows you to remove only visual components but not tracking junk, that's why Chrome's stats seem better.
Closer to 16% than 20% (Score:3)
I think the median of several browser stat websites, as calculated by the Wikipedia entry for browser usage share makes much more sense, than taking one particular site's data - besides, StatCounter has always been biased in favor of Chrome. Not any political kind of bias, mind you, just the way they collect their stats seems to favor Chrome.
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Wikipedia doesn't have June numbers yet. W3C has seen it rise from 16.8% [w3counter.com] to 18.7% [w3counter.com] in the last month. That's a 1.9% increase, statcounter has 1.29%, hitslink only 0.59% and Wikimedia still isn't ready yet, but it's likely the WP average will go up from 16.2% to 17.3-17.4% for June. Either way there's no denying Chrome is climbing fast.
Chair Gripping Story (Score:3)
Simplified: Browsers A, B, C are introduced in order to billions of users. Browser A starts with 100% of Market, using Marketing tools like bundling, until Browser B is introduced. Browser B does not have marketing dollars but over time achieves 30% share, Browser A falls to 70%. Browser C is introduced, using Marketing tools similar to Browser A, and in shorter period of time takes 20% share, mostly from Browser A. A now = 50%, B = 30%, and C = 20%.
65% of Slashdot comments are then griping about Browser C using Marketing tools of Browser A.
The real challenge is to think of something interesting to say on this topic. It's like commenting on which of your neighbors schoolkids is the smartest looking. Oh and sorry Netscape, you were the first A, but I wasn't talking about you.
Firefox, Chrome, and Google Toolbar (Score:2)
Ironically, Google Toolbar is the only thing that stops me from switching from Firefox to Chrome. If Chrome could access my Google bookmarks as easily as Firefox could, I'd switch in a heartbeat. But every time I launch Chrome, it says I should import my bookmarks from Google Toolbar. I click on the option to do that, and it doesn't do it.
I'm still holding off upgrading to FF5, as it says my Google Toolbar will not work. Whether I stick with FF or not depends on whether or not Google Toolbar gets updated to
I've been collecting stats too (Score:2)
Embracing a New Enemy (Score:4)
I find it sad that an audience who ran away from MS a decade ago is willing to embrace something so easily from an arguably much more sinister source. Personally I have stopped using Google for searches (DuckDuckGo) and never embraced GMail except as a throwaway account.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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I find it sad that an audience who ran away from MS a decade ago is willing to embrace something so easily from an arguably much more sinister source
Enemy, shmenemy.
Microsoft was a bland bureaucracy that produced the worst sort of bloated corporate junkware. They were monopolistic pigs with contemptible table manners (think Ballmer here). At times I frakking hated them.
Google however has been a meritocracy that creates stuff that is often pretty cool. Google has an appetite like any other corporate beast but so far they've been more refined which I appreciate. So far I have little cause to fear or hate them.
So Microsoft took my money and gave
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I think what we can take away from this is that generally most people want a fast browser that works over all other concerns.
Facebook (Score:2)
If you look at the places where the most amount of time is spent on the web I doubt "power users" is the term you want to use...
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i had to kill my profile folder and start again with FF4 as it was running so bad. However FF5 seems to have improved performance, which is probably why they released it so fast.
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Yes, FF5 is noticeably better than FF4 on my anaemic little Mini 9 netbook (running Ubuntu 11.04).
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I am actually finding webkit browsers on my linux rendering slashdot.org poorly and really slow especially with the scrolling. I tried a number of them, Chromium, Chrome, Epiphany, Arora (which I really liked) and Midori. I go fed up so I switched back to the gecko engine, Icecat 5 in fact and its great.
Re:Recent convert from Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't ever take behaviour on Slashdot as an indication of anything for a browser, Slashdots Javascript is just shit, its layout is just shit, and in general its just shit - there are so many shitty bugs in the code that have been complained about for ages and yet the team constantly roll out new candy rather than fix fairly major bugs.
My two pet ones are the "load another comment further up the chain when you click in the comment box, and remove the focus from the comment box. Yeah, that means the next click will load another comment..." and the random lack of karma scores on comments.
And yet they recently changed the page layout slightly, which fixed none of the bugs commonly reported. Eye candy over functionality.
Utterly pathetic. The only reason I come here any more is for the entertainment from the discussion, which actually I haven't found elsewhere. But as an example of a front end, Slashdot is just shit.
Re:Recent convert from Firefox (Score:4, Informative)
The Classic Discussion System works fine, though.
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Slashdots Javascript is just shit, its layout is just shit, and in general its just shit - there are so many shitty bugs in the code that have been complained about for ages and yet the team constantly roll out new candy rather than fix fairly major bugs.
AGREED! I can't remember the last time the "Working..." progress spinner at the bottom actually stopped.
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Well, yeah, but I don't want to have to hit a key combo just to search
Do you even consciously hit the keys? That shortcut is the same in every other application.
If I begin hitting letter keys when I'm browsing a page I'm probably searching for something. Why else would I hit letter keys?
Well, on sites like Slashdot or DuckDuckGo, you might be using the key bindings to navigate the page, or you might be using some text widget written in JavaScript (e.g. one of the many rich text editor tools), or you might have thought that you had a text field selected but missed.
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I don't know all the extensions you list, but for those that I used on Firefox, there are replacements on Chrome:
Adblock Plus: Use the Adblock extension. It is very good now; don't see any difference to the FF ABP anymore. (In the beginning, it would only hide elements, now it doesn't download them)
All-in-one Gestures: Use the SmoothGestures extension. It does everything I need.
Better Privacy: I think not needed anymore on Chrome - LSOs ("Flash Cookies") now get deleted when you delete other cookies fr
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If there are holes in drivers they should be fixed
Good luck with that. Oh, and if you're using Linux with the current nVidia drivers, be careful where you navigate with WebGL enabled...
Re:WebGL (Score:4, Informative)
You have of course reported any known bugs to nvidia.
I haven't, no, but the person who discovered the hole did, about a year ago. Still waiting for the fix.
Unfortunately, both the silicon and the drivers were designed to run trusted code very fast. Being able to run untrusted code safely is an entirely different design requirement. The latest hardware is designed to be able to run semi-trusted code fast (although the drivers aren't really), but the older hardware isn't.
Addressing security holes by ensuring those who need to know about problems can fix them helps.
That only works if they have an incentive to fix them. 99% of nVidia customers don't care if shader code can compromise their system, because they trust all of the shader code that they run. They do care if they see a performance hit. If you produce a new driver that gives people a 10% drop in framerate, how many are going to thank you?
You'll notice that the responses to Microsoft's comments were all from browser developers, not from driver developers. People who work with the drivers know that they shouldn't be allowed near untrusted code. A typical driver for a modern GPU is a huge chunk of code that was developed with only one design constraint in mind: speed. The fact that the recent hardware is a bit safer is due to this same requirement: customers don't want the overhead of switching to kernel mode to talk to the GPU, so the newer chips just do some basic setup in the kernel and are designed to have all of the commands sent via a ring buffer mapped into the userspace process. Because the userspace process has more or less direct access to the hardware, the hardware now needs to provide proper isolation for unrelated processes. This makes it a bit more likely that it's safe. Of course, this doesn't prevent the WebGL code from being able to compromise the browser, it just prevents it from being able to compromise the system without compromising the browser first.
WebGL is nice in theory, but it's inserting untrusted code into a software stack that was never designed to be secure, and that's a problem.
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And when browser makers inevitably choose to make WebGL click-instantiatable only (the way IE prompts when loading ActiveX controls) then what will you say?
I'll say 'gee, that worked so well for ActiveX, what could possibly go wrong?'
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