Slashdot Mirror
Google's Chrome Declining In Popularity
holy_calamity writes "After launching in a blaze of publicity that even warmed Slashdot, Google's browser grabbed a 3% share of the market, but has been slipping ever since, and now accounts for 1.5%. Google has also stopped promoting the browser on its search page. Assuming they wanted it to grab a significant share of the browser market, have they dropped the ball, or is this part of the plan?" On Slashdot, Chrome is still the #4 browser (after FF, IE, and Safari) but it was ahead of Safari for a few days, hitting almost 10% of our traffic.
No add-ons. I want my ad block plus please.
GENERATION 24: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
I'm waiting for it to mature. I thought that was the whole point, we test it out, see what we like and wait for it to mature into a stable product.
Now we know how long Slashdot users can stand to browse the internet without AdBlock.
With all the options available today, there's just not a need for another browser right now. For most that don't want to use whatever their default browser is, they use FireFox. Firefox also had a lot more grass-roots promotion in the earlier days, that does not appear to be prevalent with Chrome.
Come on is this a surprise? I've downloaded Chrome, I've used it for a little bit of time and then gone back to Firefox as its got the plug-ins and other bits that I use everyday. When Chrome becomes a full product and has the plug-ins that I need then I'd consider switching, but for now its just something I'll fire up when testing my web code and then use that open window for some browsing because I'm too lazy to switch to another window.
Hell personally I'm shocked they beat 1% of people, I'm stunned that 1% of people cared enough to download a new browser.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Every web browser needs ad blocking functionality because the web is practically unusable without it.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
I love it still. I've loved it from the moment that quicktime crashed and it didn't kill my browsing session.
Polluting the Internet since 2003...
http://percep
Still waiting for their e-mail saying a native Linux port is available.
I gots no use for Windows apps.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
In my day to day job I deal with having to develop for both IE and Firefox. I haven't even so much as downloaded Chrome. Why should I? I know someone is going to say "Because it's a superior browser", etc etc. I also loved the Amiga and although it was a superior machine (IMHO), it was just TOO much of a niche and the rest of the world functioned on PCs. Just like the rest of the world functions just fine on IE and Firefox.
I downloaded it a couple days after it was released and although it is rough around the edges I've grown to like it a lot. The history search function is really nice and the fact that it takes about a second to launch compared to the 10 seconds for Firefox (at least for me, this is probably out of the ordinary) is a real bonus.
But honestly, this seems entirely standard. Of course it's going to start off with a surge of popularity and then lose a little momentum. This doesn't mean Google has "dropped the ball", it means that people are acting quite normally. It may have been a mistake for Google to release Chrome before all the kinks were worked out (mine has crashed a couple times); however, I don't think this decline in percentage was anything that wasn't expected -- 1.5% is still a hell of a lot of people.
I guess it's because chrome isn't so bleeding-edge anymore. V8 was great and all, setting a new perspective for JS VMs, but now, SquirrelFish Extreme and TraceMonkey are getting better benchmark scores than V8, and it's just becomming a little bump in the history of browsers. Development is at a relative standstill in comparison to other engines/browsers like Safari/Webkit and Firefox/Gecko.
It descended because it wasn't extensible, wasn't secure, and honestly didn't do much that was that innovative besides provide some fun nerd porn.
I've been giving Chrome a try myself, but my wife and my kids all still use FF or IE. I like that it takes up less screen realestate for tabs and so forth, and the history-homepage thingy is useful to me.
I'd be happier with Chrome if it weren't for it's habit of getting hung up on Flash sites and bringing the whole OS to a screeching halt - sites that work fine in Firefox.
I'm still using it for performance reasons. Although, Gif animation seems to be slower on Chrome.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
Google did the same thing with GTalk. They released it (with a lot of hype) and then let it rot.
It's a great browser... for Windows. Which I don't use. Make it for OS X and I'll use it.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
People slowly realizing it's not such a good idea to have your nine most visited pages available for anyone to see.
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
Does this mean I don't have to add it to the list of browsers and platforms I already test with?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
with a bunch of engineering students last night. A few had Chrome on their laptops (We were meeting at a coffee shop about a conference), but most of the people in the shop were using FireFox. FF works fine for them and most asked why should they try chrome when what they have works with few or no complaints. There was nothing revolutionary in Chrome from their perspective. Hell, I opened it up and the first thing I saw was the dial pad area and I thought, "what the hell, looks just like Opera with different looking tabs at the top." To me there was no reason to use Chrome over Opera or FF or Safari.
People are generally hesitant to change unless there is a good reason. Look at how long it to FF to make in roads. Finally when MSIE was having the hijack of the week, people moved to FF because of the perception it was somehow safer. A lot of Mac users, myself included, use Safari because it works. That was not always the case, but these days I don't have many problems with safari and webpages. I have FF and Opera but I rarely use either unless I'm testing.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
The trouble is that Chrome has a few nagging bugs, such as crashing when trying to bookmark a page, and crashing when trying to submit a bug report. It is a fairly fast browser however.
Absolutely love Chrome's UI design and how it's centered around the idea of using new tabs for everything. That fits in perfectly with how I use browsers myself. Love the hell out of the new tab page and wish other browsers would do the same thing. Love the stability and ability for pieces to crash without taking out the whole thing. Love the fact that they stuck with keyboard shortcuts I've already got in muscle memory and didn't reinvent everything just to be different.
Hate the absence of my Firefox extensions, particularly Adblock and Greasemonkey. So I switched back.
Give me ad blocking functionality, even without extensions in general, and I would probably stick with Chrome.
It seems to me that the pool of users that Chrome is seeking to draw from has already been taken by the likes of Firefox and Opera. And, unfortunately for Chrome, fans of Firefox and Opera are violently loyal customers. Even if Chrome supported addons I would have a hard time giving up my Firefox.
Does this mean that Webkit is now the most widely utilized HTML rendering engine?
At work I am using Windows, so I was able to give Chrome a go, but after a week Mcafee ant-virus was flagging chrome.exe as a virus, followed by its installer. There wasn't much I could do to get round the issue. My main browser is Firefox and I like to have a menu-bar, instead of poking around Windows Vista style to find out where all the options are hiding.
While I did uninstall Chrome, I did install Iron, simply to be able to validate web pages I am developing:
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/09/24/iron-chrome-for-privacy-fanatics/
This is essentially the same browser, but tailored to "privacy fanatics". It has yet to get my anti-virus in a fit.
At home I am using a Mac, so Chrome is not even an option.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
... the biggest one being lack of "opening with a bang", if I was google and dropping a new browser into the market I'd want to make the best product possible and make sure the users needs were being met, speed and a spartan interface is not enoough.
If chrome were a browser serving customers, it would miss the mark by a large margin. They have good engineering but no sense of meeting their customers needs.
If your goal is to get other browsers to improve, then market share is nice but not a necessity. Google wants the world full of browsers that are good platforms for web-based applications.
I find it surprising that Opera is still behind Chrome. I'm personally a Firefox user, but I really thought that Opera was more prevalent, especially on Slashdot. I guess the few Opera users there are, are just really vocal when it comes to promoting their browser.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
For a moment I thought the reason I was continued using Firefox was because I wanted to avoid IE. I downloaded Chrome soon realized Firefox has become more than an open alternative to IE. The ability to have addons and the range of addons has made it important tool for my productivity.
where did my sig go? where's my sig at?
It's free, and it doesn't serve up any ads beyond what you'd otherwise get (questions about adblock notwithstanding). So it doesn't matter to Google if people actually adopt Chrome. What they're more concerned about is getting similar ideas into Firefox and maybe, eventually, IE. The browser, led by their example, will become a better tool for web software, which is a win for Google.
On a more mundane note: Still no Linux version. I liked it on Windows. From the amount they talk about Windows programming on their blog, I can't help but feel that the Mac and Linux versions are not much more than nice ideas.
The only reason it usurped FireFox was it's quick load time, but there were a many add-ons luring me back to FireFox.
The key factor for me was incompatibility with Google Desktop. Win+G launches quite a number of things for me, and not being able to launch Chrome was a dealbreaker. Chrome's still hotkey'd but not my default browser for this sole reason.
Tried it, hated it... First thing that killed it for me, it installed into some convoluted directory in Docs and Settings instead of Program Files like a normal real application. And it has none of the features I like and use and no plugins yet. I'm an Opera user myself which I like for not having to download a thousand plugins and still not have half the functionality (speaking of FF) at same performance.
I think Linux isn't better than Windows hence in the slashdot realm I'm a troll
I would use it more often, as I do like the "snappiness" of Chrome, but scrolling with my trackpad is unusable. The tiniest motion causes the scrollbar to fly down the page. Anybody else have this problem?
I'm one of those 1.5%.
A few things I like.
I don't need noscript because so far, Chrome sandboxes the scripts well enough. The address box interpreter is the best of the lot by far. Most sites I visit are three keystrokes away and if I haven't ever been to a website but know its name, Chrome does an excellent job of guessing where I'm headed. The launching speed is a huge win and if adding gee-gaws on means sacrificing load speed, then I'll take Chrome as is.
A few things I don't like.
Adding bookmarks requires the mouse and requires that you realize that clicking on the little star is the way to add a bookmark. I expected, and looked for, a 'add bookmark' menu item.
I want to be able to completely navigate without the mouse. Chrome almost does that but not quite.
People wanted to tested it.
Ohnoz, some people thought their old browser was better than the first public version of the other one, who could have guessed!?!
It's not firefox. People are forced to use IE for one reason or another, accounting for those numbers. People use Safari because it's Mac's and runs well, and People use firefox because it's not IE and has add-ons that everyone loves, but googles is simple there. It's offers nothing special, especially when pushed against the competition.
If chrome uses webkit how can we really call it a new browser? How is this different than simply creating a new front-end for IE or firefox?
In terms of JS performance firefox as we all know has similiar performance enhancements on deck.
If Chrome wants to be popular it needs to actually offer something above and beyond its competitors.
Lots of hype and no follow through or commitment. Google is a search engine company with lots of half finished technologies they don't have the vision to stick with or continue. Everyone sorta does their own thing, sponging off of search, and there's no real vision to any of it. Hope Sergei likes his spaceship.
This is my sig.
So far...
*No Linux version yet - can't use it at home on Ubuntu without sloppy hacks
*No find-as-you-type - I didn't realize how much I used this in FF until it's not there
*No AdBlock Plus - I determined this to be my only real must-have FF extension. There are a few others I really really like, but I can get away without them for the most part.
*Lack of extensions in general.
On top of those, I think it's a novel new browser, has some good things, but there's a lack of transparency, too. At least with Firefox, I can view their Bugzilla, check out progress on Mozillazine, and feel like I'm seeing some progress and idea of where things are and where they are going. So Google has said they'll support addons and extensions. It's open source so people can hack it if they want. Well....where are they on supporting extensions? Where's the community building on the source? When is the estimated release of a more final version rather than something that really seems more like a technology preview demo?
That said, I'm having problems with the Minefield pre beta (FF 3.1) today, and am actually thinking of trying Chrome as my default for the day to see how I fare. Crazy.
It's a beta browser guys... Should they really be *that* worried if interest drops off after the initial peak and very first release? Between FF, Safari, and dare I say it Opera, there's plenty of non-IE choices out there in the world to satisfy everyone.
Let Google do their thing, and if they're on the right track they'll pick up users as they inch closer to a non-beta status. Though this being Google...
Google Gears stood in the way of successful installation.
Starting with Netscape 3.0 back in 95; I used it until IE had shown itself as a stronger browser. IE's rendering and loading was faster than Netscape for IE version 5. Since then and all my continued windows usage i've been reluctant to change based on habit or brainwashing. When I think about going to a web site or anything along those lines the first thing I think of is the "Blue E" with the yellow halo. Its just always been that way. Even since I installed chrome at home I checked it out and used it for 20 minutes. After closing it and coming back to the computer to browse the interwebs, i fell back into the "blue E" habit. Unless I make the google chrome browsers default icon the same as IE's I doubt i'll use anything else. I guess if some great feature came out that I couldn't live with out, was released it might be easier to switch.
I've been loving chrome, the fast startup is really what brings me back day after day, but it has a big problem with flash and pdf's. Often times watching videos sends the cpu to 100%, sometimes for 20-30 seconds, longer than it takes to startup FF which doesn't have this problem. And it always seems to do it when viewing pdf in-browser, trying to scroll immediately sends it to 100% cpu, rendering it unusable. If they can fix these bits, I wouldn't mind not having add-ons
Being open source, all the best features of Chrome will end up as FF extensions. It's already happening. It will only be a matter of time before all the good of Chrome more or less absorbed into Firefox, and all the bad (google's snooping, no extensions) are left out.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
What's up with this process? Looking for newer versions or what?
Get up!
Uberjoe's comment is dead on, and in addition the browser is just not very cleanly programmed yet. I would be happy to switch to it when it has good functionality. It's not there so far, but it will be.
It really isn't. Although market share is always nice, the real reason Google made Chrome becomes obvious when you look at the javascript benchmarks compared to all of the other browsers. It blows them out of the water. Google wants to be able to do as much as possible from the browser so that it can create increasingly complex web applications that attract viewers to whom they can advertise. To do this, it needs lightning-fast javascript abilities. This is the reason Chrome is open source: to give this javascript interpreter away for free.
On Slashdot Chrome is still the #4 browser (after FF, IE, and Safari) but it was ahead of Safari for a few days there hitting almost 10% of our traffic.
on that note, MSNBC (co-owned by Microsoft) mistook Chrome for Safari and suggested to try Firefox instead.
My sig has been answered.
...release to large fan fare and wide downloading, but only partially functional.
Then either
A. receives little not follow-up going unloved inside Google and eventually fails.
or
B. continues to gain in popularity, gains some developer following
leading to either
1. hangs in beta forever as Google tries to make money
or
2. figures out how to make money and comes out of beta
There is something to be said for this sort of processes. Resources and brainpower go where it believes the most opportunity is thus ensuring that high potential projects go forward. However, this also means you get little follow through with projects that could be successful but are nowhere near as sexy. To use stock market analogy, everyone in Google wants to own call options on projects - (they can make you wildly rich) especially when Google is buying, but no one wants to earn the large cap paying a good dividend, it will not make you rich nor is it as sexy. Or to use baseball terms, the firm is still trying to hit home runs when a few singles and doubles will keep the inning alive.
Consider this, anything that would bring in $10 million a year in net income probably has little to no pull within Google. Why? Because Google brings in $4 billion a year in NI (almost exclusively from Ad Words), making $10 million dollars is like throwing a shovel full of dirt into a mining pit, literally having no impact on Google's bottom line - but what if you had 20, $10 projects? Now we are starting to get somewhere. Instead of looking for the next billion idea relentlessly, they should searching for multiple $10 ideas across its platform or start looking to hit singles and doubles while they can still afford to do so.
Given Google's wild success and having never really to struggle, the firm's conventional wisdom believes markets like online ads to be common occurrences. What this creates is a culture and portfolio of technology and products that are constantly trying to mimic that success, but going to do so to a lessor degree. These products tend to have a higher potential payouts, but smaller changes of succeeding.
This leads me to my ultimate conclusion, Google has now become the most highly capitalized and valued venture capitalist firm. The only problem with this is that Google isn't treating its products like a portfolio, but rather casino bets - continuously moving from one project to the next. A VC firm knows that the big returns come from big winners but you also need a string of solid firms to help manage the volatility of the underlying portfolio of companies. This is the idea that Google really never has figured out and will ultimately lead to the deprecation of its stock price. You cannot have huge winners all the time and while Google Ad Words was an incredible find and tremendous money maker those projects and program only come along once every 10 - 20 years - just look at the time between Microsoft and Google to understand why.
Get a Linux / Mac version of the browser going and see what happens. I know there aren't nearly as many Linux / Mac users out there, but these are vocal communities who will extol virtues of anything that takes up less processor capacity or makes their day have one less click in it. There's an opportunity to make all these windows guys feel like they are missing out unless they use Chrome.
M
I went to install it on my Latitude D420 running Ubuntu and found it wasn't available. Because the browser isn't mature, I thought it was directed at people like me, a super user. Maybe it was, but if it is only available on MS products then it will never be as good as it could be if it had been written to run on multiple platforms. /flame on
I used it. I didn't like it. I deleted it. I like Firefox.
Seriously...
One has to wonder. When has Google ever, upon first release, released *anything* other than "speed and spartan"?
You guys seem to be under the impression that Google has changed it's ways or been bought up by another company, seeing as how you all seem to be expecting something entirely un-Google-like for their first browser release.
Their search engine? Sure, it's full of nifty features and such *now, but when it first came out? A single text box. No image search, no book search, no personalized homepage... Just a spartan interface and excellent results.
Their email? You're kidding me, right? GMail may have IMAP and PoP now, but when it was first released? Nothing. Basic email functionality with excellent search capabilities, conversational email style, and a new way of organizing your mail (labels). Nothing fancy. No RSS, no chat...basic, spartan...
Why on Earth would you expect *more* from their browser? Do the past releases of Google created apps mean *nothing* to you? Are you all incapable of thinking more than 10 seconds into the past?
Sheesh....
Welcome to the ADHD generation, I guess...
I had troubles rendering MSDN forums in a readable fashion. I am a PC using programmer (mostly .Net) by day and a Mac user at night (no support last I checked). Plus, I REALLY love the ctrl-click and drag table highlighting Firefox offers.. and all of the plug-ins.
Check out my site: IM User Directory
Firefox's ability to search through my bookmarks easier and to sync my bookmarks to multiple PC's is what keep's me from switching.
Google wants to be able to drive the future of the web and how it is used. To do that, they need some say in how browsers are built. Even if only 1.5% of people use Chrome, they still get this. For example, Google needs users to have browsers with fast Javascript so their apps work well. By releasing Chrome, they put pressure on Firefox and IE to meet their performance benchmarks. As they add other features, other browsers must take notice.
/...
I've only seen one comment about abhorrent privacy eroding BS that is in Chrome. I tried the SRWare Iron version, it's a pretty decent little browser, but it needs addons (as people are saying) and there's no way I can install this on anyone's computer with all the anti-privacy crap going on in Chrome.
I suspect this is a very real hangup for the majority of folks who would be the early adopters of a new browser.
Google could put a "Sell all my data to China and format my hard drive" button on their home page, and thousands of people would click it.
That button is there, as would be evident if you were using Chrome.
I saw Chrome as a demo or idea (and a good one!), rather than a product.
The initial spike in share, was just people checking it out. When I'm looking at something new, I'm willing to run it inside Parallels or play with the Crossover-hacked version, but day-to-day I'm not going to put up with such inconveniences.
Once it gets ported to some less weird platforms, get polished a bit, etc. then it might start making sense to talk about whether it's a real contender or not. Right now it's just too early to say, and I don't think you can read anything (either positive or negative) into the changing share stats right now.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I wrote an early review of Chrome when it was released http://www.digital-us.org/tech/2008/9/6/google-chrome.html
1. When browsing on my laptop w/ mousewheel(actually tap zone), it scrolls way too fast. Why do apps insist on overriding the OS setting for mousewheel scroll levels? I set it my way for a reason.
2. Importing FF bookmarks puts ALL the bookmarks 1-subfolder deep. There's no automagic way to move it up one level in the tree. You have to drag them one by one.
3. No flashblock. Flash ads are getting more and more irritating by the day. We need it. Not google's fault entirely.
4. Hanging on "resolving proxy" regardless of the fix you applied. Sometimes it's "resolving host" either way, when it hangs on that, it negates all speed advantages.
5. If Firefox works just fine for me, why switch to Chrome? I see no real need to.
I would actually consider making it my default browser. It is incomplete and that's the reason Firefox still remains my browser of choice on Windows and Linux.
On Mac, I prefer Safari. There, Firefox seems piggish. My needs are modest. It has to be lightweight (on mem/cpu resources)and all I really need is Flash and Adblock.
I would like a cross platform/browser bookmark syncing utility. but that doesn't exist yet. Google Browser sync and Weave are close, but it's Mozilla only for now.
Do not read this
I figure Google does not want it to take over the world. All they need right now are enough users to generate bug reports. They can let the software mature using a small user base. After they have the bugs works out, some plug ins available and so on then they can do a marketing push.
For day to day surfing on Windows machines I enjoy Chrome, it is a lot faster than IE and doesn't seem to crash like IE7 in Vista does.
I also prefer it for slashdot moderation as IE7 does not seem to work anymore. (I did submit this bug after seeing this issue on several different computers on different networks).
Chrome is fast. I did have to fix one thing; I noticed with my laptop the scrollbar on the touchpad would only scroll down, not up.
If you have this issue there is a simple patch which fixes this perfectly and instantly:
http://www.surfchrome.com/index.php/home/news-list-mode/81-patch-fix-for-synaptics-touchpad-scroll
And there are the other missing add ons that people have mentioned, but I suspect those will come along.
For me, it's bookmark syncing. Firefox (foxmarks) syncs my toolbar on my PC at work, my mac at home, and also my account on my wife's computer.
No other browser does that for free, reliably, and across multiple platforms.
of the Android market.
And, Safari has 100% share of the iPhone market.
It's Google's web platform for their mobile OS.
And, you can even run it on your PC.
I use Chrome pretty much just for Slashdot. I use Firefox for almost everything else.
I assume it's the faster javascript (or maybe just placebo effect, who knows) but Slashdot seems a lot more responsive in Chrome than in Firefox.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
I watch resources for Chrome compared to FF and IE opening the same pages. Chrome is a resource pig. Nice and simple but really, from a resource standpoint, there is no argument to switch over.
There's simply no reason to switch. Every browser gives you pretty much the same experience, so what's the hook with Chrome? Google says it's Gears, but frankly there's not a lot of stuff out there that uses gears, so why should I care? Also, with Chrome being at such a small share, any support for Gears is going to have to work with IE, FF, and Safari, simply because that's what people use. Chrome was always a yawn, just like 95% of all Google Apps.
I know some people might think this is picky, but the lack of smooth scroll in Chrome is what made me go back to firefox. I spend 90% of my time scrolling on websites when I browse the web, so I want the feature I use 90% of the time to be working perfect. This is another reason why I use Safari on my Macbook, because the smooth scrolling is the best i've seen in any browser combined with two-finger touch scroll.
Why does chrome require Administrator privileges to install? I can't install on my work PC where I'm an untrusted user, and frankly, that requirement makes me hesitant to install elsewhere.
I tried it, and uninstalled it. Seriously, there werent any mindblowing, incremental or differentiating, features in Chrome to make me scrap Firefox or even Explorer (yes I run both because of a wierd Cyrillic support idiosyncrasy). Still going to keep an eye on it, who knows maybe the coding community will rally around it and come up with plugins that will elevate its functionality. I admit I am a fan of many things Google.
I continue to use Chrome, for what I think it was meant for and that was to host applications. I host gmail, calendar, our time tracking system, etc. in it. These applications don't utilize the plugins I have come to rely on when developing or browsing the Internet, hence the reason I continue to use Firefox for those activities.
Until the Firefox and Chrome functionality merge are offered through one application, I will continue to use them in these capacities.
Could it be that others are doing the same?
It may not be pretty, it may be beta, but its still great for looking at porn though!
"Assuming they wanted it to grab a significant share of the browser market, have they dropped the ball, or is this part of the plan?"
My assumption is that this is a standard Google release - something half ass that only mostly works... which someday Google may come back to and fix, or maybe not.
Until google makes Chrome available for my Mac I don't see any reason to try it on my Windows machine.
What if I fall in love? My heart would bleed lonely tears waiting for google to finish the Mac version of Chrome.
--Fac Iustum Nec Time-- --Veritas Prevalibit--
There is a group in Europe that is distributing Chrome minus all of the ills and Google junk. It's vastly better.
http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php
Chrome Vs Iron
http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php
Clear win, IMO. Open source made this possible - and in only a couple of months.
Chrome is still the #4 browser (after FF, IE, and Safari) but it was ahead of Safari for a few days, hitting almost 10% of our traffic.
Is there some place that the full charts of this info is available?
don't you wish it had the settings:
Temporarily Show Flash for Site X
Temporarily Show All Flash for This Site
Adblock style?!
Visiting an automobile site like bmwusa is a flashblock exercise on clicking every new page, or digging into the settings afterward to remove the permanent permission you were forced into.
there's too many browsers. why download chrome when i already have ie and ff? too many programs doing the same thing. i can post this reply from any browser, google shouldnt have wasted time and money developing another browser that probably does the same crap i can do with ff.
From the second paragraph of the actual report (not the founder's letter):
Now, please explain why Google would ever want to enable ad-blocking or even make it easy for a third party to do so. If Chrome had a large market share and ad-blocking was enabled, Google would be toast.
-Chris
Beta, Windows only, and no Adblock... What did you expect?!? Massive adoption? In related news, concept car goes slow on sells.
When I print in Chrome, I get page header and footer information (date and time, web page URL etc.), and I can't get rid of them. I print out shipping labels from USPS.com and Paypal.com, and I don't want to see that there - Firefox and IE handle this easily, Chrome doesn't handle it easily or at all. Whenever I know I am going to be printing a label out I switch to Firefox for a while - for every tab I have open, since having Firefox and Chrome both open uses up too much resources. Also for reasons others mention - no Linux version. On Firefox, if a NSFW image pops up for some reason, I can right click, go to "Block images from whatever.com" and avoid a lot of problems. I find it very convenient. OTOH, there are things I like. I like that newly opened tabs open near the calling tab instead of as the last tab. I like that one crashing Youtube video doesn't bring all my tabs and the browser down. I like how most browsed pages and the like appear automatically for me.
So I have sites that I go to all of the time, these of which I would consider safe sites. I don't go to bad sites at all (ie: porn, torrent sites, or anything suspecious). I somehow got a bot (spyware) installed through Google Chrome. Since then, I won't every use Google Chrome. Just use someone (Firefox) that is known to be stable on the net. Google Chrome Sucks!!!
I don't run any plugins with Firefox. Ads don't bother me - I mentally screen them out anyway.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Does that have something to do with the fact that we can go for several days now, without seeing a Chrome article on the Slashdot front page? It used to be a solid 3 or 4 articles a day, but now, we are lucky to see that in a week!
sic transit gloria mundi
Surprising to see so many negative comments about Chrome. Folks keep on cribbing about bloated software and when you get exactly that, a lightweight, fast and robust piece of engineering that is beta and has fresh ideas and is engineered differently it doesn't make sense to whine about 'missing features' and be gloomy.
One would think folks would be resourceful enough to get around these so called missing features and they are trivial to do, use a hosts file or Privoxy for adblocking which delivers the same result and use bookmarklets for extensions like delicious and google notebook. There are others for most so called missing features. Being Slashdot one expects more informed and a higher level of discussion than Chrome sucks or why should I use Chrome.
Well because its fast, stable and lightweight. Not good enough? How about because it can run 8-16 hours straight without crashing with memory consumption going up to 1GB and returning to 30MB depending on your usage with no fuss. How about the improvements in javascript and ajax apps, or the independent tabs and the fresh approach by Google in engineering the browser, aren't these the sort of things that would appeal to the slashdot profile.
On Windows, Chrome is already my default browser. There's some issues like the flash issue, but other than that I like using it a lot more than firefox. It just feels a lot more responsive. I'm disappointed though, that they don't have a Mac version, as that's my primary machine, which is a shame since Mac Firefox is the program most responsible for freezing my machine.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
It's the Plugins, Mofo.
All 12 of us running Linux on the desk don't make or break a browser success story.
Crappy embedded media experiences, and no support for enhanced validation certs, phishing filters, malware screening, etc.?
Bad shot. Plus it was built on a version of WebKit that is so vulnerable, it should be redacted from CVS.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
scrolling bug was ruining my experience, so I'm back to firefox. The software has to be mantained.
I can't see Google every releasing an Adblock equivalent plugin.
The win32 installer has several dependencies, making it nearly impossible to get installed on many systems (anything prior to WinXP)... There are even several web sites dedicated to workarounds to deal with the broken installer. Obviously, with such a broken installer, its a real show stopper for a lot of people on win32 systems at least. Not to mention that they don't yet even have a linux release. Obviously whoever wrote the installer and the requirements for the app really dropped the ball on generic win32 compatibility.
> Assuming they wanted it to grab a significant share of the browser market, have they dropped the ball, or is this part of the plan?
That's a pretty big assumption, but let's run with that. Anyone who's used the web much understands that Chrome isn't anywhere close to being finished. It is clearly a "it runs well enough to not be embarassing *cough*Cuil*cough*, so let's release what we got" version. And google isn't dumb; they're going to release a lot more functionality on it over time.
So, and I'm not prescient nor even very smart, I believe that they have neither dropped the ball, because I don't think they're done, nor do I think this surge in usage was "part of their plan". Can one PLAN what users do, or how many users do it? Maybe; I sure can't. And it's not even relevant, really.
So, I believe the author's hypothesis is flawed; they AREN'T trying to grab a big market share. With this release. Yet. Right now. At the present time. ad nauseum.
Looking at their history, they have had a tendency to do these "point" releases of stuff that did a few core things, pretty well, then add more bells and whistles, each of which did their thing pretty well. Over time, you get a pretty damn nice product from them. THEN we'll see how market share goes.
But now, with this, is just not the right time. They're putting down the outriggers; eventually the crane will be steady, and then the BrowserWorldDomination building goes up.
Before you design for reuse, make sure to design it for use.
I do 98% of my surfing on a Mac, and the other 2% using linux. Since there's not a Google-released version of either, I'm just not that excited about it.
Basically, I'm satisfied with both Safari and Firefox, so meh.
I stopped using it after the first day. Why? Because it had more bugs than an effing Roach Motel and it kept crashing all together every 4th page...at least Firefox is down to where it only crashes maybe once a week. Plus I didn't see any evidence of this superfantasticohmygodgeewhiz speed increase that everyone else seemed to be singing to the angels about.
At the end of the day, cool factor doesn't count for a hell of a lot with me if the damned thing won't work. If I wanted a browser I have to fight with I would have stayed with Internet Exploder.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Interesteng 'demographic'. I assume the I.E. users have it foisted upon them, at work, say. But where's Opera? I have used this excellent product for years as my browser of choice and occassionally use Firefox if I have to (some websites really don't like Opera, sadly). The main reasons I like it are the customisability and the Wand feature.
I also use Safari and I.E. when checking my sites for cross-browser compatibility, and Chrome is pretty indistinguishable from Safari (both webkit based) so again there seems to be little point using it.
Smivs on the intertubes!
For me, Chrome is a lot like Opera. I like it, and it has some neat features that Firefox doesn't.
Before Firefox 2 came out, I was trying out Opera 9. There were some cool features that I liked (can't remember exactly what they were now), but when Firefox 2 came out, it had all of the same features.
Opera 10 has Speed Dial, Chrome has a similar feature. I would be surprised if the next version of Firefox came out and didn't incorporate all of the cool new features. Firefox will probably have incognito mode before Chrome has a viable set of addons.
I hope that Firefox will have seperate processes for tabs, and tabs that can easily be pulled in and out of windows. To me, this is the greatest new feature of Chrome -- along with a (hopefully) better javascript engine.
Pipes. Lots and lots of pipes. Kind of like the internet (except those ones are called tubes IIRC).
cogito ergo dubito
BuildBot: Chromium
Chromium issue tracker
Google Chrome Release History
Gosh, I thought, when using chrome, it's almost as if it's a early Beta.
Which is exactly what it is. Although the google definition of Beta is a little different (Heck I'd say it's more honest considering what some other companies do with shipping products too soon)
Clearly google released chrome as it was to test the waters. They don't need to have a browser on the market, so they won't forge ahead with it unless a big positive reaction reveals it would be worth while.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Am I the only one left who still cares that Chrome is closed-source? Towards a Free future! Remember that?
Remember? Hello? Anybody there?
Property is theft.
I don't want to tie up screen space with a bookmark bar. Give me a bookmark icon to add to the main tool bar. Other than that I like it.
A lot of people will stick with IE because they don't know any better. This is why, imo, Firefox isn't number one seeing how it has way more features than IE will ever have.
So that really only leaves Google the Safari/Opera/Firefox market to eat into and Chrome just doesn't have enough support to make me give up Firefox. Plus it seems to have some performance issues.
It has potential but I think Google will just let it slowly die like a lot of their other projects.
I suspect they're afraid of taking too much focus off of search and falling behind in that market but no one has remained on top forever so they need to grow in other areas too.
hete show that Chrome doesn't even get 0.1%. YMMV, as the saying goes...
My web domain.
-Chrome loads flash slow (though this is improved slightly in the dev version) -Chrome does not run on linux/osx -Chrome does not have plugins (stumbleupon Id like) -Chrome interface is not easily customizable (skins are easy, but moving buttons/etc is hard.) This isnt necessarily a downside though, because they make sense how they are, and its easy to support standard controls. Chrome is currently a great browser for work (no flash necessary for most work computer apps anyway), but it needs some work to be good in the consumer market.
The reason Chrome has no users is because it can't compete with IE 7 in the eyes of lazy users. You need look no further than Firefox to see this: despite several high-profile ad campaigns, including a full-page ad in the NY Times, the browser is stuck at around %20.
Obviously, 3/4 of the internet doesn't give a damn about security, stability or extensibility of Firefox. Why would they care to install ANY browser, let alone one with less features, and an unproven seurity record?
The other problem is corpoate momentum. Most corporations are glued to IE, and if they use anything else then they JUST RECENTLY upgraded to Firefox. Neither of those groups is about to jump on a beta browser.
So, that means Google's marketshare is restricted to tech-heads on Windows, and unfortunately they already have several browers to choose from (including Safari if they're Webkit fans). In the end, Google has preactically zero marketshare because they've given users practically zero reason to jump ship. Chrome may have made an impact five years ago, but today it's just redundant.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Opera is often set to identify itself as another browser to defeat those scripts that lock you out unless you use browser X. That might reduce Opera's numbers a little.
... grand closing!
...stop the presses...
This just in... Google should have contributed to Firefox, instead of reinventing the wheel. Following a wave of hype, market share is now declining... News at 11, 10 Central.
Speaking of FreeBSD/Linux/Solaris/AIX/BeOS/whatever OS you can name, chances are there is a Firefox to suit you.
Unlike any other browser in the history of the planet, there are also approximately 1.2 gazillion plugins for Firefox. The vast majority are cross platform, due to Firefox's Gecko/XUL/Chrome (note the name).
Firefox has momentum. I.e., it's growing on IE (pardon the pun) as well as Safari/Opera. (Was that an estimated 300 million FF users, out of 1.5 billion on the Internet?)
In addition to this, the future Firefox 3.1 is supposed to have a really, really fast JavaScript engine that rival's JS in Google's Chrome browser.
But wait, there's more. Wasn't it Google Gears that was supposed to create disconnected (on- or off-line) desktop apps on Firefox. Why throw in the towel?
There's even more! Google could have wrapped this all up neatly in a "plugin framework," and written it with less effort, and made themselves a defacto-must-have-it part of Firefox, and have impacted more users in less time.
People could have even written themes and other plugins that bolt on to their "plugin framework," the same way Firebug has its own add-ons (like YSlow).
So, why, why, why did they move away from Firefox and reinvent the wheel, instead? I saw no features that couldn't have been done as a Firefox Add-On.
Maybe I'm wrong, here, so feel free to flame away and moderate me out of my miserable existence!
i don't understand everyone's gripes with Chrome. what the FUCK kind of goat-porn/activex sites are you looking at that make it crash??? i've used it everywhere! in use with javascript, flash, asp, php, html, css, and all the others. not one crash. most people blame their crashes on the browser, when I wouldn't be the least bit surprised that it is some BHO or AV software that is causing the conflict. Chrome's multithreaded idea is a breakthrough in how browsers should work. I would like to see it in Linux because firefox simply likes to crash/close without you even knowing it or without any message even telling you it crashed. it is the quickest and easiest web browser I've used to this day. Firefox and IE will simply steal Chrome's ideas and implement them in their newer versions and everyone will say how cool they are now. all Chrome needs is a Linux and Mac version and the ability for fullscreen browsing and we'll be good to go. go Google!
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
I run a website with a bit of traffic, an online footiemanager, and always keep an eye on browsers, their usage and their performance. Here is a little blog with some interesting results when it comes to JavaScript and performance. http://www.managerleague.com/blogperma.pl?id=1858
- Here's to everyone with no signature!
...side by side with Firefox.
Actually, I only use firefox when I am deving, I like Chrome, feels so light.
Anyhow, I don't think the google guys never meant it to nom a big slice the market since they said they just wanted the other guys taking from it whatever they thought was worth it (read "the comic"). Yeah, Firefox is definetly better, more popular, and I hope it always stays like that. I will still be using Chrome for my normal surfing. Oh yeah and AdBlock is for pansies =)
The management decided because of the terms, google owns all our content if we use it so it was banned.
Hulu and Youtube use Adobe Flash, not Adobe Shockwave. Shockwave is pretty rare on the Web nowadays, and has been nearly abandoned by Adobe (there was no Intel Mac version for the first few years of Intel Macs).
Knowing this won't change your experience that Chrome and Youtube don't play well together, of course ;)
The shareholder is always right.
I'm curious what you like better about Chrome's address bar suggestions. I use Mac, so I haven't really been able to play with Chrome.
The shareholder is always right.
That's the case for me. At "work" (actually, a client site) running XP Pro, FF2 could never drill through the firewall, but FF3 did out of the box without problems. Chrome starts up and gives me the sick computer icon. At home on my Win2K laptop, Chrome started but had some problem; I don't recall the exact details right now, but I opened a bug report and noticed several other people with the same issue. I'll try it again in a few months.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
Just my few cents. Well, that's interesting, because Chrome is quite nice software. However, personally I think that DHTML (aka Ajax hype) is definitely not where very near future goes. People want rich internet applications instead (M$ Silverlight, Adobe AIR, Sun JavaFX). Therefore I truly doubt someone will really hurry up to install the same WebKit that just has bit different GUI and runs every tab in separate process...
As for me, I have none of issues with Chrome, but as a developer I just get these usual life things:
Personally, the less browsers Ajax developers have â" the less problems appears. I'd love to have one decent browser instead dozen of those that always missing something.
As for your points 4 and 5: there is a "privacy enabled" fork called iron, use that instead. And in regard to a *quite* release, it was all over the tech news and even popped up in mainstream media.
The dudes over at the Iron project (aka "tinfoil fork" :p) developed an ad blocker for Chromium - their forum announcement translated to English here.
For those who don't know about Iron - apart from disabling all phoning home features, this version is also based on more recent Chromium (the open source project behind the browser) builds than Chrome itself. They also have a "portable" version which requires no installation at all.
Download the browser here.
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
I now use Chrome at home and at work almost exclusively.
-It's extremely fast when loading.
-If one tab crashes the rest of my browser doesn't go down with it - I know everyone's been to the buggy flash site that brings the world down
-Tab support is amazing - dragging tabs in and out of windows.
-It's clean - there's not a lot of junk cluttering up my toolbars. It feels as though I get more relevant information on the screen.
Use it for one full day and you won't go back - outstanding for a first-release beta. It took Firefox 3 until nearly the final release to get this kind of stability.
There are a few things to be desired: .org, shift+enter for .net). This is an excellent feature of Firefox.
-Shortcuts for going to alternate TLD's from the address bar (e.g. ctrl+shift+enter for
-Livetitle -- love to see what the woot is!
-A way to go to your home page aside from alt+home
I felt the same way about switching to Opera...
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
I know I may be a little left behind but I'm still scared of that Google agreement.
Google is the main contributor to Firefox.
Moneywise, that is. Not so much for the code.
Anyway, Chrome is such a radically different design than Firefox that no amount of code contributions could turn one into another. This is how it has to play out.
Ofcourse it has declined, Google Chrome is in beta. A lot of people are obviously going to download it and use it for awhile to test it, but it is not yet as powerful as their regular brwoser. I'm sure when Chrome is in a completely stable build with extension support they will start grabbing the market share they're looking for.
Is it just me or does anyone else see Chrome as just a method to deliver ads? Seems to me that Goolge got a bit pissed off at AdBlock for removing their revenue generators from webpages..
Google did not build Chrome to capture market share. They did not create it to launch a product or to circumvent adblock (duh).
They built it for a real strategic reason: to make sure the web remains usable and open. If Google hopes to serve web apps in the future, they depend on the quality of browsers, and the current browser architectures apparently don't satisfy them.
Changing Firefox wasn't an option and attacking IE is a mission with very little payoff for Google. So Google chose to inject their design principles into the market by creating a radically new, yet incomplete browser, and release it open source, so it gets adopted. If Microsoft steals this technology to make IE9 even better, Google's mission will have succeeded.
There's an Economist article which explains all this pretty good as well:
link
Everyone is jumping on the firefox bandwagon as the best alternative to IE. Why destroy their momentum??? Everything google is offering with chrome can already be done with firefox, what is the advantage then, why bring out something that is already there, at least give us something to change to that is new and fresh....
I think this is one of those bad moves by google in a long list of good ones.
For whatever reason, Flash lags to high hell on Chrome for me. I still use it though because Firefox crashes randomly. It's probably my computer, but oscillating between browsers is fine with me...
Google fails again.
Mentioned as an aside was the browsers hitting Shashdot - has anyone looked at the percent by site? Not quite certain what it would mean, beyond the esoteric value of visitors to these types of sites tend to use browser X while for these sites tend to use browser Y. Greg
I am definitely one of the few and the proud Konqueror users!
Now and then companies deploy iquestionable improvements and we all say so what did they do and there is nothing that we notice. This morning I opened my iGOOGle home page to findGoogle had "improved" it. I'm not against improments generally but this is totally a decline in quality and performance when you loose 1/8 of the width and it crams the columns up to be barely readable. The thing that really irks me is the way they did it...just like MICROSTUFF just as arrogant and without any care of what their consumer thinks. I guess it all comes with success or maybe they just want to loose money when eveyone else is doing like wise