How widely used is Chrome? More than I expected
Chrome doesn't have much market share among CNET News visitors, but it's climbing.
(Credit: CNET News)Is Google's Chrome browser mainstream?
Certainly not. But I've been curious how widespread its use is, in particular because I'm curious if I have any company in my choice to set Chrome as my default browser.
So I persuaded CNET's tech guys to give a window on what's going on here at CNET News. The result surprised me: 3.6 percent of those visiting the site in October used Chrome, up from 1 percent in September, when Google launched Chrome.
That's higher than I expected. It lagged Microsoft Internet Explorer, with 40.7 percent, Firefox with 37.4 percent, and Safari with 18.2 percent, but beat out Opera, with 1.2 percent in October. (Other browsers bring the total to 100 percent.)
Of course, CNET News has a more adventurous and techno-savvy audience than the average Web site. For comparison, I looked at data from Net Applications, which releases browser statistics based on the 160 million different people who visit a network of 40,000 sites using its Web analytics service. The company's data skews somewhat toward usage in North America and Europe, but it's still a more mainstream view of browser use than our site's.
Net Applications gives Chrome's share at 0.74 percent, essentially tied with Opera at 0.75 percent for October. Leading the pack is IE with 71.3 percent, followed by Firefox at 20 percent, and Safari at 6.6 percent.
So it doesn't look like Chrome is crushing either of the major powers. But second-tier browser companies should certainly be paying attention, given how rapidly Chrome ascended to striking distance. Google has a strong brand and a lot of programmers, even though most folks still aren't convinced they need to switch.
Chrome is rarer, with 0.74 percent share, in Net Applications' measurements of millions of browser users.
(Credit: Net Applications)
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank.
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"@nubsack: Who cares. "
While Google removed the language from Chrome, they did not remove it from their other services on Google's online apps. This language means that if you use Google's office suite, they can claim use of anything you do there- which makes it very dangerous if you use it to look at company documents, email, etc. While it is unlikely that they actually will do anything, the very presence of the language itself is dangerous.
No shocker there.
HA! LOL!
Now THAT is funny. ;)
"...but didja notice IE's share dropping like a rock? "
As is Firefox and Opera in that same graph. Your point is ... well, ridiculous and unfounded.
"Err, Dan? Get yer eyes checked... FF is actually growing in the graph, while Opera remained steady-to-slightly lower. ;) "
Well now, you are absolutely right. FF is growing and I made that mistake. I apologize for that error. Thanks for pointing that out.
http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php
Google Chrome is longer than SRWare Iron.
If you remove the name of the companies behind each browsers, Chrome is still longer than Iron.
I'm still using IE for some tasks but compared to Chrome running IE is like going back to load time of a CBM 1541 disk drive.
Bill
Google's share will probably triple thanks to Android release and a mac/linux port.
Opera is remaining flat which probably shows that it's increased the number of places you can install Opera (symbian, windows mobile, mac, linux, RIM, windows, etc)
IMHO, What MS should do is port it's browser to the RIM device so that i can compete.
It seems that Chrome enjoys higher market shares initialy in more tech-oriented sites.
The anti-google-baloney has Chrome at 5.7%...
In my opinion, it is very unfair for Chrome to compare it with the likes of IE and Firefox. This is a comparison that should be made at least 2-3 years from now...
http://the-anti-google-baloney.blogspot.com/
IE will stay king until one of the alternative browsers makes a real push into business, a large number of the IE stats is from people using IE at work.
Chrome I guess is a long term push and will probably take a few years to get a decent percentage, but it's a good start.
Chrome is fast, but right now it is little more than a novelty item to me, a hard to use one at that. And I don't consider myself technologically slow as I've been building my own computers for six years, running basic web sites and fixing people's computers as a side job for years.
Now I've noticed this happens several time a week. That's too often for a piece of software that seems to have no support/updates.
Of course this would never be an issue if Microsoft simply followed standards. Their business practice seems to be to cause chaos for anyone who doesn't have their product rather than doing what their competitors do by trying to encourage sales via a better performing browser.
Are statistics the tech reporter's answer to mainstream media's meaningless lists?
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by cmstratton
November 26, 2008 7:46 AM PST
- I switched to Chrome as my default browser a couple weeks ago. I use a pretty old computer (about 4 years old) and Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer all ran extremely slow. Firefox and Safari crashed pretty often. Chrome is so light, it works perfectly for what I need it to do.
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