Chrome Is the Third Double-Digit Browser

An anonymous reader writes "Google's Chrome has taken the 10% market share hurdle, according to Net Applications and is past 15%, according to StatCounter. It is interesting to see that IE is declining at an accelerating pace and IE9 Beta cannot, despite the massive marketing campaign, dent Chrome's growth, while Firefox is holding on to what it has. It almost seems as if IE9 will not be able to turn around the decline of IE."

Comments

IE9

[Anonymous Coward]

Is tied to Vista and Windows 7. Its marketshare in terms of Windows users is limited to the users of those operating systems. Sometimes integration is a bitch.

Re:IE9

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still running IE 5 for unix, what's your problem...

Re:IE9

[icannotthinkofaname]

Sometimes integration is a bitch.

Integration is always a bitch. I find derivatives far easier to calculate.

Re:IE9

[ravenspear]

oh yeah, well my website degrades gracefully to Netscape Navigator 2.0. Beat that!

Re:IE9

[hairyfeet]

Not to mention there is more than just Chrome which shows up AS Chrome so that will skew the results if you strictly go by net stats as well. For example just off the top of my head there is Chromium and Comodo Dragon and IIRC both of those show up as Chrome under UA, and I'm sure there are probably other Chromium based that also show up as Chrome under UA. Does Flock show up as Chrome as well?

Me personally I am just damned glad we have plenty of choices now, screw the whole "who has the biggest" ePeen BS. I remember when you had the "choices" of Internet Exploiter on one hand and Nutscrape on the other, which was kinda like saying "Would you rather be punched or kicked in the balls?" as having choices in the matter. Now we have Gecko based- Firefox, Seamonkey, Kmeleon, you have webkit based Chrome/Chromium, SWIron, Comodo Dragon, Flock, Safari, and you even have trident based like Maxthon and Avant, and of course Opera all by itself running Presto.

So I am just glad we have a wealth of choices, so that when one company screws the pooch when it comes to the browser we are not stuck with a choice of that or IE. As far as IE goes I think this picture sums it up best.

Re:IE9

[HairyNevus]

ba-dum *tss*

Re:IE9

[Anonymous Coward]

lynx bitch!

Re:IE9

[Runaway1956]

"degrades gracefully"? Mmm. You must be acquainted with a lot of elderly women . . .

Re:IE9

[Mitchell314]

wget mothafuckas

Re:IE9

[Khyber]

01010010 01000001 01010111 00100000 01000010 01001001 01001110 01000001 01010010 01011001

Re:IE9

[AmyRose1024]

Telnet. :)

Re:IE9

[Tubal-Cain]

netcat

Re:IE9

[Gerzel]

Insecure. Try SSL if you can.

Re:IE9

[gandhi_2]

Please tell us how to SSH to port 80 and issue GET commands.

Re:IE9

[zach_the_lizard]

Pfft, I lick my Ethernet cable to get raw frames, bitches!

Re:IE9

[norpy]

All of the browsers you mention likely have user bases that equate to rounding errors in these stats.

Re:IE9

[zach_the_lizard]

Now witness the power of our fully armed and operational knowledge engine. Integrates at will!

Re:IE9

[The Hatchet]

First thing I do when I am done installing win7 ult. x64: Download chrome. IE is a fucking virus. I have uninstalled it 30 times now from this computer, even erased every last file involving it from my box, and stopped all updates containing it, then BAM there it is again. It may exist on my computer, but I am sure as hell not a user.

Re:IE9

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Like this:

#On the server
apache2ctl stop
sed -i s/Port.*/Port\ 80/g /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/init.d/ssh restart

#On the client
scp -P80 root@SERVER:/var/www/htdocs/FILE_TO_BE_RETRIEVED /tmp/ && cat /tmp/FILE_TO_BE_RETRIEVED

Not exactly an HTTP 1.1 GET command, but close enough :)

Re:IE9

[Tarlus]

Butterflies.

Re:IE9

[kdemetter]

HTTPS doesn't run on port 80 , but on port 443 by default .

Re:IE9

[omfgnosis]

I'd wager that the vast majority of people who even care about browser usage share statistics are concerned about rendering engines (and their capabilities), not which window chrome they're wrapped in. And with Chrome dropping H.264, for all intents and purposes all of the [desktop] WebKit/V8 browsers *are* Chrome, somewhere along the release schedules. Likewise, all of the [desktop] WebKit/JavaScriptCore browsers *are* Safari, all of the [desktop] Gecko browsers *are* Firefox, and all of the Trident browsers *are* IE, each somewhere along their respective release schedules. And of course each of their respective mobile counterparts have some serious capability differences, but substituting [mobile] for [desktop] would yield the same results. And apart from the WebKit split, if any one of their parent companies screws the pooch, the engine is likely to need to find a new benefactor to remain current. Thankfully, for the sake of choice, all of those parent companies are wildly successful and will probably be irrelevant in the browser engine world before they go tits up.

Interestingly, the WebKit split has has a curious effect in terms of direction for new capabilities, in that where Apple and Google find consensus they tend to wield a lot more influence on the other engine developers than either would with different engines. If Apple and Google both release a -webkit-blowjob CSS extension, it's almost a guarantee that the next major version of each engine will be giving us e-blowjobs. And if Google could convince Apple to support WebM, the fight over web video standards would be over in an instant.

Re:IE9

[Anonymous Coward]

Cute, but scp/ssh and ssl are not the same :)

Re:IE9

[Anonymous Coward]

But are you using a termination resistor?

Re:IE9

[TheRaven64]

$ openssl s_client slashdot.org:443
{ Lots of SSL information}

GET / HTTP/1.1

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Server: Apache/1.3.42 (Unix) mod_perl/1.31
Location: http://slashdot.org/
{More HTTP reply}

Is that too hard for you?

Re:IE9

[azalin]

Just don't drink and derive...

Re:IE9

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Of course the aren't the same. Also, SCP is not the same as HTTP 1.1.

But parent asked how to SSH to port 80 to retrieve a webpage, and I explained precisely that.

It's funny, laugh.

Re:IE9

[goose-incarnated]

netcat ;-)

Re:IE9

[treeves]

It better be one of those Monster (TM) Ethernet cables, so it's low sodium and doesn't give you hypertension!

Re:IE9

[ravenspear]

well, not exactly. You do not know the file path is /var/www/htdocs/, so you would need to read the web server config to get that before you could reliably retrieve the file.

Wasn't on purpose

[MrEricSir]

Studies also show that due to the icon, most Chrome users thought they were downloading a Pokemon application.

Re:Wasn't on purpose

[Anubis_Ascended]

Studies also show that due to the icon, most Chrome users thought they were downloading a Pokemon application.

Or a Metroid app (it sure looks like Samus's Morph Ball to me)

Re:Wasn't on purpose

[0100010001010011]

They just wanted to see what Simon said.

Re:Wasn't on purpose

[Afforess]

I know you're joking but..

Net Applications measures web site hits, not installation base, so your logic doesn't work.

Re:Wasn't on purpose

[marcello_dl]

or SAL 9000

Re:Wasn't on purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

The color scheme of x is that of the y version of the SNES controller.
where
x = Chrome, y = European
or
x = Chromium, y = US

Re:Wasn't on purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

lolz :D

Re:Wasn't on purpose

[kaizokuace]

ugh i wish I caught all the mod points!

Re:Wasn't on purpose

[St.Anne]

Chromechu, I choose you!

Re:Wasn't on purpose

[Z00L00K]

I thought it was ELO music.

However - I have also noted that Chrome comes bundled with a lot of software - so if you install one thing you may automatically get Chromed too...

Re:Wasn't on purpose

[chris.alex.thomas]

thanks a lot mate, you ruined that joke, nice one, I'm very happy you commented, you really brought a lot to the conversation.

Re:Wasn't on purpose

[fabioalcor]

My Firefox Pokemon ate too much memory and processor over the years, and now he is too fat and slow for the battles around the interwebs. Not to mention that he didn't evolute since a long time...
So now, Chrome, I choose you!

Re:Wasn't on purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

You gotta catch em all ! ! !

Not surprising

[siddesu]

Seeing, as it is, that I am using Chrome on the mobile appliance I carry around, both Chrome and FFox (ffox being the main) on my notebooks and I have no IE as default browser on the two Windows devices that i still have for business reasons.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing, as it is, that I am using Chrome on the mobile appliance I carry around, both Chrome and FFox (ffox being the main) on my notebooks and I have no IE as default browser on the two Windows devices that i still have for business reasons.

Your representative sample of 1 is most impressive. I am glad you took the time to write that.

Re:Not surprising

[siddesu]

yes, i measure the world by my standards. i am sorry you're not up to that.

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, i measure the world by my standards. i am sorry you're not up to that.

Your inferiority complex is your problem, you smug bastard.

Re:Not surprising

[zach_the_lizard]

Your representative sample of 1 is most impressive.

Obi-wan has taught you well.

Re:Not surprising

[xaxa]

Looking at the web stats for where I work for the last year, IE reduced gradually, but increased a little after Christmas. Perhaps some people who get new computers stick with IE (and 70% of hits are from Europe, where new Windows users should get the browser choice screen thing).

Re:Not surprising

[mcvos]

I'd like to add that Chrome is finally getting IE users to switch to a better browser. My wife already had Opera and Firefox on her laptop, but it's Chrome that finally got her to stop using IE.

Re:Not surprising

[Meski]

"I'm using IE for a year for tax reasons"

It's about time!

[Aerorae]

It deserves so much better than 10%!!!

Re:It's about time!

[MemoryDragon]

Well if you look at the mobile space, Chrome/Webkit has a defacto monopoly thanks to the bundleing into Android iOS and Blackberry.

Re:It's about time!

[Anonymous Coward]

What is Android iOS? Is Apple finally opening up the iPhone?

Here's a constructive comment

[Jorl17]

Microsoft Fanboy: "Lies, /. is for Lusers, I am only here because I must show u th4t."
Anti-Microsoft: "YAY!"
Balanced people: "So....why should I care? Oh yeah, Microsoft's evil."

But I'd just stick with "YAY!"

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[east coast]

Balanced people certainly don't think MS is any more evil than Google or Facebook.

As a side note, I left FF months ago for Chrome and haven't looked back. I think most of the FF fanbase are those who still remember the glory days of old, not taking note that if you're praising FF and scoffing at IE you're just making yourself look like an ass to anyone who really shops around for software.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Anonymous Coward]

As a side note, I left FF months ago for Chrome and haven't looked back. I think most of the FF fanbase are those who still remember the glory days of old, not taking note that if you're praising FF and scoffing at IE you're just making yourself look like an ass to anyone who really shops around for software.

Agreed. I switched to Chrome from FF after trying the disastrous FF 4 betas. Hadn't looked at Chrome recently until there was a good ad blocker. Now that there is, Chrome is by far my preferred browser.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Balanced people certainly don't think MS is any more evil than Google or Facebook.

Of MS, Google & Facebook, which is a convicted monopolist?

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Chrome's ad-blocker isnt as fast as the firefox version of ad-block. Chrome is still a bit wonky in that area.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Draek]

Balanced people certainly don't think MS is any more evil than Google or Facebook.

Actually, those fall under "Microsoft fanboy" due to the significant parts of history they'd have to dismiss in order to maintain that ideology.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Anonymous Coward]

When Chromium has NoScript, Mouse gestures that work even on blank pages, and a user interface that looks like the rest of my system, maybe I'll consider switching.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Atriqus]

This isn't about X being less evil than Y. The more web browser options that are out there and the more evenly distributed their populations become on the internet, the safer we are from closed, non-free, or just browser-exclusive extensions rotting the platform.

I think it's great that Chrome has surpassed the psychological (but purely arbitrary) milestone of rendering web pages for a double-digit percentage of the internet's population. But the moment they have too much of the percentage is when my approval becomes concern.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[characterZer0]

Balanced people certainly don't think MS is any more evil than Google or Facebook.

Have Google or Facebook corrupted standards organizations? Threatened OEMs? Illegally abused monopolies to gain market share in other markets and lock out competitors? Massacred standards to create lock-in?

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[msauve]

"Balanced people certainly don't think MS is any more evil than Google or Facebook."

Huh?

MS is the new IBM (established, but staid and losing relevancy). Apple is the new MS (proprietary market share). Google is the new Apple (innovative, with a somewhat fanatic following). Facebook is the new Google (up and coming, but no concept of reality). It's just the wheel.

Oh, you're right, in that they're all degrees of evil. IMO, Google slightly less than the others (hard to argue with free and transparent).

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[msauve]

You're confusing law with ethics. They're barely related.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Zelgadiss]

All companies are evil to a degree, although IMHO MS is higher on the scale than Facebook and definitely Google.

Again my opinion.

But I don't see MS as intrinsically evil, just their leadership.
I'm waiting for the day MS turns over a new leaf, but it looks like that day is a long way off as it seems the likes of Balmer aren't going anywhere.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Anonymous Coward]

But I don't see MS as intrinsically evil, just their leadership.

What's the difference?

The rank-and-file employees are either indifferent to, or supportive of, any evil coming from the leadership. That's why I don't work there. Instead, I work for a different software company.

I'm comfortable enough, I'm not living paycheck to paycheck. I could make a little more money working for Microsoft but having a clear conscience and knowing I am not supporting an organization I really believe to be exploitative and Machiavellian is more than worth the difference in cash. I like knowing that my employer does not have a long history of abusive behavior. For the mercenaries who don't mind dealing with the Devil as long as his checks clear the bank there is employment at Microsoft.

Don't make excuses and pretend like only the leadership is the problem at Microsoft. You can't be a leader unless people are willing to follow you and they make a choice to do that. They have no ethics/morals or their ethics/morals are for sale (effectively the same thing). I refuse to pretend like this is normal and acceptable and you should too.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[The Hatchet]

Thats not constructive at all. I use windows because it is compatible with the engineering software I have to run for my profession, and for the wide versatility win7 ult x64 offers, and frankly I rarely have problems with it. But at the same time I hate IE with a passion and am a strong supporter in google chrome for the same reason I love windows on my box. I mean, that whole thing was just a terrible oversimplified comment that makes ridiculous assumptions as to the character of anyone that isn't as gung ho everything anti-microsoft as you. Mind you, I too think they are evil, but not nearly a few percent as evil as Apple or Sony, but their OS itself holds enormous use for anyone that does more than just surf the web, and edit basic documents, especially for engineers of all kinds, I personally run about a dozen Autodesk products that run on Windows only, not to mention gaming and such.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[The Hatchet]

you're confusing monopolistic behaviors as something that could possible be something besides as unethical as you can get without whipping your workers and selling their bodies for sex.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Zelgadiss]

I understand, if I were offered a job at MS I personally would be pretty divided about it.

But there are people out there that just want to make a living and don't concern themselves with "idealogical" stuff.

Almost all of MS schemes are concoctated by the top brass, if they were replaced MS could go in a total different direction.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[icebike]

You are pretty spot on in your analysis.

I have friends that work there, and they are far more open about stuff than Apple or even Google. They weigh in on support forums and follow up when people post problems.

If they can't talk about something they just say so instead of ceasing to communicate at all. Some even openly disagree with the company decisions.

The evil at microsoft was from the top. By the time you got to the coders and designers they were just overworked Joe Programmer types. They burned thru a lot of these guys.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

I love Chrome, but it's full of annoying issues that cripple it completely.

Lack of real adblock is one of them. The way adblock works on chrome is an ugly hack, and it slows down the browser. At least on GNU/Linux, if you have adblock on, and you try to scroll on one tab while you have other tabs loading, scrolling slows to a halt. Also, adblock cripples scrolling while page is still loading on heavy pages. I develop security systems, if you load more than 2 or 3 mjpeg streams on chrome, they all slow down badly. There are several compatibility issues. It's canvas implementation is broken in many ways. The URL bar suggest drop down sucks. History is broken, dates are all wrong, it's impossible to see where you've been actually ordered by date.
Not to mention the most stupid of all chrome issues, the throttle limit on error pages. It makes debugging web apps IMPOSSIBLE on chrome. Also, the view-source functionality is broken and stupid. When you click on view-source, instead of seeing the current source, it GETs the page again, alongside any POST or GETs you have. Effectively a reload. This is CAOS when you are developing a web app. I went nuts seeing double-hits on my apache logs, seeing forms being submitted twice, until I figured it out (it's not properly documented anywhere, there is a work around, but it sucks). Also, the JS debugger sucks. It shows files you can't get to, shows errors on non-existing line numbers. At least on Ubuntu 10.10 Gnome/compiz the sync between current tab title and window title is broken, so after you click on another tab, you still see the old window title most of the time, you have to click back and forth several times to fix it. It makes it very hard to know where you are if you have many tabs open and can't see the full title in them. I can go on and on all night on things that are just totally brain-dead about chrome.

I fucking love chrome, it certainly is the best browser out there, but it has a long list of incredibly stupid bugs, miss-features and design errors that make it sometimes unusable, at least to me.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[biryokumaru]

Why not just use Privoxy?

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Darkness404]

Chrome has a fundamental flaw, lack of customization. For example, you can't even customize your history, something that every browser since Netscape and IE have been able to do. But somehow in Chrome there is no ability to switch between full history and super-ultra-privacy mode. Not to mention there is no Chrome equivalent to about:config that Firefox has. As someone who likes to customize my most used piece of software how I like it, Chrome just fails in that regard. If Chrome was as customizable as Firefox, I would use Chrome as my primary browser, but since it doesn't have customization features that even IE has... I'm sticking with Firefox until it becomes completely unusable.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Omestes]

Balanced people: "So....why should I care? Oh yeah, Microsoft's evil."

As a balanced person (I'm running OS X, Win7, Vista, OpenSuse, and Ubuntu currently); I'd be happy if Chrome/ium, IE, and Firefox were split down the middle. I would be happier if their were ten mainstream browsers with 10% usage. Competition is good.

IE benefited greatly from Firefox. Firefox might benefit from Chrome being around (it needs to, it has turned into a fat, sloppy, unfocused mess). Chrome might benefit from poor old Opera. And Opera will sit in a corner and feel depressed that no one loves it.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Draek]

All companies are evil to a degree, although IMHO MS is higher on the scale than Facebook and definitely Google.

Again my opinion.

But I don't see MS as intrinsically evil, just their leadership.
I'm waiting for the day MS turns over a new leaf, but it looks like that day is a long way off as it seems the likes of Balmer aren't going anywhere.

Well, even if the engineers know it's a terrible idea, if Ballmer and co decide today to screw up with HTML5 just to piss off the competition that's what the IE9 team will end up doing and what end-users will receive, so in that respect their leadership is Microsoft moreso than their engineers, developers and other employees doing the actual 'grunt work'.

Every once in a while the engineers do get to have their way, though, as shown by the not-too-important-but-still-valuable contributions they've made to Free Software in the past. But I have a hard time thinking of anything positive IE has ever done, and even its inception was tainted by one of Microsoft's most deplorable actions so I, for one, won't be sorry if/when Chrome and Firefox ever make it kick the bucket.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[pspahn]

I'm brain give to the parse error for you.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[SenseiLeNoir]

Its a pity I do not have mod points, but if I did, I would mod you as "+5 spot on".

I was once a volunteer in Mozilla, and I joined because I didnt want ONE company to be the overwheming majority as was at the time (with IE in the 90%). Before IE it was Netscape, and before Netscape it was Mosiac. Even the view at Mozilla was that they wanted to "make a difference", but were not aiming to be the "browser that rules the roost".

The people at Mozilla are actually quite pleased that we have a better "spread" among these days, where we are approaching a state where people choose the browser based on its own "value added features" rather than due to rendering features.

IE has benifitted from Mozilla, and certainly for the developers developing IE, Mozilla has injected life to their project. IE has come from being an awefull browser in IE6 to a fairly respectible Broswer in IE8. The IE team are known for sending a cake to the Mozilla team everytime Mozilla makes a major release. MS Developers HAVE been very friendly and assistive to the Moz devs. In turn, MS views Mozilla Firefox as a "tier 1" application, and work together with Moz to ensure compatibility.

Peopel choose IE/Chrome/Firefox/Safari/Opera based on their own preferences these days.

I still prefer Firefox for my main browsing, but there are times I kick up IE/chrome, etc.

I am similarly agnostic on my choice of OS, using Ubuntu for work, and development oriented stuff, and Windows 7 Ultimate for home/personal/media/gaming.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[dave420]

Surely you could just stop going to sites which have adverts you don't like? It seems a bit cheap to use a site's bandwidth, for content you clearly like, and not want to repay them by just being served a few adverts. You don't even have to click them for the site to get money.

Chrome is an awesome browser, though. Version 10 is sweet.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[mcvos]

Balanced people certainly don't think MS is any more evil than Google or Facebook.

If you make that: "Balanced people certainly don't think MS is any more evil than Oracle or Sony", then I agree. Well, I'm no fan of Facebook's lack of privacy and control either. But Google has quite a bit of credit with me for their enthusiasm for open source and giving stuff away for free.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Omestes]

Peopel choose IE/Chrome/Firefox/Safari/Opera based on their own preferences these days.... I am similarly agnostic on my choice of OS, using Ubuntu for work, and development oriented stuff, and Windows 7 Ultimate for home/personal/media/gaming.

Thats what confuses me about "fanboism" these days, we've gotten to the choice where pretty much everything is competitive in performance, stability, and features. MS, especially, has come a long way, Windows7 is a rock solid release, and probably the best thing MS has done in a very lone time. Playing around with the IE9 beta also shows that IE has really become a contender (and not on monopolistic grounds anymore). Linux, likewise, has come very far, it used to something that I loved, philosophically, but pretty much hated to use, to something that has a user experience that is pretty much as pleasant as the two corporate behemoths.

I still worry about Firefox though. I'm frightened it might change into some gigantic bit of bloatware that does pretty much everything, but none of it terribly well.

My only real complain on the state of browsers is that everyone is trying to look like the new guy, Chrome.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Bullshit. The internet has been free for so many years, and it will continue to be free. The software behind 80% of the internet is free software. If we can create the software that you use to run your website for free, you can run your website for free.

I don't believe in copyright, and I'll do whatever I want with any content. If you can't find a better business model, then you are welcome to walk away.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[SenseiLeNoir]

I agree with what you said about Windows 7 (caveat, i have Ultimate in 64bit guise). I like the way I can use win XP mode for 32bit/16bit compatibility, even to the point of loading some older 32bit drivers for USB devices no longer supported in 7/64bit such as my scanner.

I woudl also arguably say that Vista also came of age recently, and although not quite as sharp as 7, its still a lot better than it was. I LIKE the UAC in concept. I liek that IE7 and 8 on those platforms starts in a low privelledge mode (severely restricitng the damage that can be done via bugs/dodgyness).Therefore I personally do NOT find XP great any more, with the way it handles security.

I LOVE ubuntu too. I like its all-in-one way of doing things.

Personally I am not too worried about Firefox. It has a certain set of features that some would want. Its like cars, you use a slow, but high capacity van for lugging things around, or a nimble roadster for nimble driving with your significant other (or alone if you wish!), but no matter what vehicle you use, you can generally drive on all roads. This is what the web should be, you choose your client, but that should not prevent you from browsing virtually all sites.

I am not too bothered about everyone looking more like chrome, because try using firefox3.6/IE on a netbook, and see how much space is "lost" thanks to the app frame.

Re:Here's a constructive comment

[Tarlus]

...what?

Suck me cock.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup.

Experimenting users

[Musically_ut]

Most people converting to Chrome might be willing to experiment a little bit more as the survey data of Firefox 4 Test Pilot users indicates.

Also, there is some weak indication in the data that those sticking with IE probably are die-hard and will sink as the OS-ship sinks, no sooner.

Re:Experimenting users

[aliquis]

Also, there is strong indication in the data that those sticking with IE probably are too damn stupid.

Fixed that for you!

Re:Experimenting users

[mcvos]

It's not necessarily the users that are stupid, but the companies they're working for. Especially for those using IE6. IE6 users are mostly corporate drones not allowed to fix their own PCs.

Re:Experimenting users

[aliquis]

If they are company drones what are they doing surfing the web? :D

Browser support by sites

[a.koepke]

I use Chrome and still come across some sites which have really stupid browser support. The site will support Firefox and Internet Explorer but somehow manages to not support Chrome and doesn't function at all (eg. Microsoft Online Services Admin Centre). It is also annoying when sites use Browser detection and say they only support IE, Firefox or Safari. Stupid!

Re:Browser support by sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally speaking, any site that uses browser detection and refuses to support an unknown browser (or specifically refuses Chrome) will not be visited by me. I can understand using browser detection to refuse to support IE6, or perhaps even IE7. Afterall, those two browsers often require work-arounds to display standards-compliant content. But the default assumption should be the a browser is compliant unless it is otherwise known not to be. If you've coded your site in such a way that it can only work on IE6/IE7, then shame on you. If you've coded your site to presume unknown browsers are non-compliant, double shame on you.

Re:Browser support by sites

[The Hatchet]

What is truly pathetic is the government and university websites that still don't support chrome. Nothing like completing 4 hours of forms just for the last page to flip a shit and say "YOUR NOT ON I E YOU BASTARD" and have to repeat it in a shitty ass browser while freaking out about virii.

Re:Browser support by sites

[Munrobasher]

Sometimes this is caused by 3rd party component vendors been tardy in not supporting Chrome in their legacy controls. Infragistics with NetAdvantage for example. I'm actively looking at replacements to their grid control with some urgency as I cannot keep hiding behind this excuse for ever.

Re:Browser support by sites

[biryokumaru]

I have never once filled out a form like that where they didn't clearly specify supported platforms at the beginning, and I've filled out a lot. You reap what you sow, man.

Re:Browser support by sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Which doesn't make a ton of sense, to me, since both Safari and Chrome run off the Webkit engine. If Safari works, why wouldn't Chrome?

Re:Browser support by sites

[ifiwereasculptor]

It happens. An airline company had to access my banking account and it only worked in IE. I struggled a little to understand what was going on, since all that I got was a "problem connecting to the banking services - please retry", then called support and the bastards politely told me to fuck off like this:

-Hi, I'm trying to pay for my ticket and can't. I've tried using Firefox and Chrome.
-You must use IE.
-Yeah... I actually don't use Windows. Is there some other way?
-Click Start, then IE.
-I'm telling you I can't. Are you telling me there isn't any way that I can buy from you guys if I don't also buy a Windows license that costs more than the plane ticket I'm trying to purchase?
-Is there anything else I can help you with?

Then people ask how a reasonable, sane person turns into RMS. Dealing with this sort of crap on a daily basis.

Re:Browser support by sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Often the site works in Chrome but their browser detection is just screwed in that it only accepts a whitelist of browsers instead of just blacklisting ones that don't work and letting all others through.

Re:Browser support by sites

[Tukz]

And yet they render differently.

Re:Browser support by sites

[pspahn]

Did my taxes on TurboTax.com today. It didn't support Chrome.

While I agree with you to an extent, sometimes there's simply no choice. I've been doing taxes with them for about five years now, and I'm not going to switch just because I can't be bothered to load FF. That's much less of an inconvenience than having my tax records strewn across multiple places.

The whole "we don't support Chrome" thing is annoying, yes, but not necessarily a sign of incompetence. TurboTax is one of the most solid websites I've ever used.

Re:Browser support by sites

[VortexCortex]

Generally speaking, any site that uses browser detection and refuses to support an unknown browser (or specifically refuses Chrome) will not be visited by me..

Broken browser detection is because browser detection != feature detection.

I test for the existence of supported features like document.attachEvent vs document.addEventListener, then use what is supported regardless of browser.

Checking by user-agent string is just wrong unless you are not using any JS at all -- User-agent switcher does not defeat my browser detection, and when IE9000 finally supports .addEventListener then it will get actually get used -- Forward compatible JS detects the features it uses.

CSS / (X)HTML features is a different beast -- I suggest conditional comments to isolate IE.

Re:Browser support by sites

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Chrome and still come across some sites which have really stupid browser support. The site will support Firefox and Internet Explorer but somehow manages to not support Chrome and doesn't function at all (eg. Microsoft Online Services Admin Centre).

It is also annoying when sites use Browser detection and say they only support IE, Firefox or Safari. Stupid!

FYI the consent amongst the web development community is more that what you are describing (in most cases) is a browser issue, not a site issue. If a site renders in IE6/IE7/IE8, FF, Safari etc but it doesn't work correctly in Chrome (a situation I have encountered myself) it is clearly the fault of the browser. While I completely agree the web dev's should find a workaround to have the site render correctly for the good of their users, it is still the browser that is ultimately at fault.

I am not singling out Chrome here by the way. All web developers have to spend a great deal of time working on browser compatibility as each major browser and different versions of those browsers display the same website very differently. If your code is written correctly to standards it should display correctly. Unfortunately due to browser "quirks" this is not the case :(

Re:Browser support by sites

[SenseiLeNoir]

DONT go talking to the support rep, they only have a script to run on, they cannot do ANYTHING.

Instead email sales for the airline, and say that they are about to loose a sale, and watch how someone will almost definately help.

Re:Browser support by sites

[groslyunderpaid]

(eg. Microsoft Online Services Admin Centre).

 
Yeah, that one grinds my gears too, as chrome is my browser of choice. Another one is the hourly forecast on weather.com

Re:Browser support by sites

[Anonymous Coward]

The worst offender I've seen recently is the FAFSA website: http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/. Not only do they sniff the browser, but they sniff the OS version. They "recommend you upgrade to the latest version of your browser," but don't support the latest version of chrome on any operating system. If I want to work on my FAFSA, I have to spoof my user-agent string to get in, and everything works fine, but most people won't figure that out, and will end up using IE, because that's the one they support the most.

Re:Browser support by sites

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate it that my Tme Warner website will not allow me to pay my bill using Chrome or Opera. I have to use either IE (as if I would ever use it) or Firefox. I lodged a complaint about this since Chrome is growing so fast and the latest Opera is so much better than Opera used to be. I am still finding quite a few sites that will not display properly with Opera, Chrome is much better at this for right now. I do have faster displays with Opera than anything else but it is also not as capable of doing things. Other than TIme Warner FF and Chrome are just about even steven.

Double Digit

[Anonymous Coward]

so it has 10 users total now? congrats!

Re:Double Digit

[Anonymous Coward]

By that logic, only 100 people are on the internet.

Well number 6, we meet again.

Re:Double Digit

[omfgnosis]

That explains why everyone on the Internet seems like a sock puppet for one of a handful of personalities. But it doesn't explain how so few people generate so much stupid, useless content.

And with it goes Bing

[high_rolla]

And no doubt MS is getting worried about this. I wonder what part of Bing's success is due to it being the default search in IE. If IE loses share then their ability to push Bing also slides.

It's interesting to note that according to Net Applications stats IE may drop to under 50% market share sometime in the middle of this year.

Re:And with it goes Bing

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome prompts you for which search engine to use. After 10 years of Google, I (temporarily) switched to Bing on my latest system.

IE9 beta?

[shutdown -p now]

Why would a beta of the browser stop the transition? It's clearly aimed at web developers and designers for testing, not at general populace. That's also where all the marketing is at. Actual users only see IE8 (if that!), and Chrome, of course, soundly beats it.

The only way to see if IE9 can turn the tide is to wait until it gets released (and rolled out to Windows Update, at least as optional update).

If you really want to compare the numbers, how about Chrome beta/dev installs vs IE9 installs?

Re:IE9 beta?

[LordThyGod]

Because that would be stoopid. The Chrome life cycle is much shorter, so less reason to even consider a beta.

Re:IE9 beta?

[tuppe666]

IE9 will only work on 40% of Computers

Re:IE9 beta?

[Anonymous Coward]

And most of that 40% probably intersects with non-IE computers. In a game where a 0.1% movement in share is significant, 40% of all computers is a huge number.

Re:IE9 beta?

[Anonymous Coward]

Although isn't Chrome, as a Google browser, in a constant beta stage?

Re:IE9 beta?

[shutdown -p now]

Chrome sure does get frequent major updates, but it has been extremely stable for me - more so than either Opera and Firefox. And these days I normally open browser at OS startup and keep it running all the time with at least one pinned tab (for GMail and GTalk), so having weeks of uptime is not unusual - and it survives that just fine.

Re:IE9 beta?

[Idbar]

Well, for starters... Because IE9 is not chrome. But at this pace, I'd say that IE10 is just Chrome in disguise... Those guys in Redmond are brilliant!

Re:IE9 beta?

[SmilingBoy]

If you really want to compare the numbers, how about Chrome beta/dev installs vs IE9 installs?

You should have RTFA:

Overall share of IE9 is 0.50%, which matches the current beta market share of Firefox 4, which is driven without marketing dollars outside of Mozilla’s website and matches about Google’s combined share of Beta and Developer Chrome browser – both of which are not marketed at all.

Re:IE9 beta?

[MemoryDragon]

It even then wont turn the tide, the reason, it simply lacks a lot of things compared to Chrome Opera10 and firefox4. IE9 again is an attempt of stopping html5 by providing some stuff half implemented while leaving a load of things out. Not that html5 itself is really equally implemented over all browsers, but IE9 stands basically at the level of firefox 3.6 with some canvas (half working) on top of it and some css transitions and a semi working half implemented svg. But they added hardware acceleration to the css transitions, which is the least important thing to many.

Microsoft seriously should do itself a favor and participate on Webkit like everyone else instead of trotting constantly three years behind with their engine. Exactly the three years Ballmer and Gates had dissolved the IE team because ie6 had 90% marketshare! I somehow feel bad for the current IE team, they get all the smacks because of the work of their predecessor and they probably also know that participating in Webkit would be the saner choice but they have to work on Microsofts own codebase probably full of com junk and bugs stemming directly from IE6 which they still need to clean up while trying to catch up to the rest, which is impossible.
The IE has become the Netscape of the browsers and you can see that by the rapid decline of IE, which is still upheld by corporations and their version lock into IE6!

Re:IE9 beta?

[Anonymous Coward]

70% of statistics are made up, though...

Re:IE9 beta?

[SolitaryMan]

I think the important trend here is that general public slowly learns what a "browser" is, and how to download/install your own. As this trend continues, the "default" browser (IE) will continue to lose its share even if it becomes as good as its rivals -- only because people are aware of the choice now.

Webkit browsers

[gstrickler]

Chrome (10.7%) + Safari (6.3%) = 17% with approx 7%/mo growth (yes, I know there are others, but the percentages are very small). In about 6 months, Webkit based browsers should surpass Mozilla derived browsers to become the 2nd most popular. Since both Mozilla and Webkit derived browsers will then be near 25%, add in Opera to push the total over 50% and finally IE will be less than half the web traffic.

Re:Webkit browsers

[amentajo]

If I follow your math correctly, then in just one year, 101% of internet users (17% + (7% * 12)) will be using WebKit browsers, leaving just -1% left to split between Mozilla-derived, Opera, and Internet Explorer!

Re:Webkit browsers

[gstrickler]

You don't follow the math correctly.

Re:Webkit browsers

[amentajo]

OK, then, I shall try again.

If I follow your math correctly, then in just 27 months, over 105% of internet users (17% * (107% ^ 27)) will be using WebKit browsers!

Re:Webkit browsers

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is 7% of the base percent so in a month 10.7% becomes 11.449% not 17.7%(just to show). Instead of linear extrapolation he is using a first order polynomial. I have no idea if it is valid to extrapolate like that. It could quite easily level off as current growth could be from some inconsistent change like smart phones or EU. Or as likely accelerate.

Re:Webkit browsers

[gstrickler]

And again you fail. Math is correct this time, but the statistical extrapolation is flawed.

Re:Webkit browsers

[ElectricTurtle]

He is doing it correctly, you're the one assuming that a growth trend will remain fixed, sorry, but the real world doesn't work that way, no matter how hard environmentalists try to pretend it does.

Re:Webkit browsers

[icebraining]

Parent is correct - where's the basis for the assumption that the growth will be 7% for the next six months? I find that rather unlikely.

Re:Webkit browsers

[gstrickler]

No, I'm not doing it incorrectly. Short term growth trends which are well below some limit are completely sustainable, and in practice are usually sustained until they start to approach their peak saturation. Also, it's not necessary for them to sustain a 7% monthly growth to achieve the result I stated. They're currently gaining approximately 1% of the traffic per month. While that's currently 7%, the percentage growth needed to gain an additional 1% traffic volume will decrease from 7% to about 4% over the next 6--9 months. Nor do they need to gain the same 1% of traffic volume every month to actually reach a total approaching 25%.

Therefore, my 6-9 month trend extrapolation is completely valid and likely, but by no means certain. The other responder's comments and extrapolations are not what I stated, and they are not valid. His calculations are covered by the referenced XKCD, however, mine are not because mine are actually based upon proper trend prediction statistics, not some arbitrary constant growth.

Now, go learn something about statistics and get back to me when you have a valid criticism of my extrapolation.

Re:Webkit browsers

[gstrickler]

Parent is not correct, see my detailed reply to another commenter.

Re:Webkit browsers

[gstrickler]

You got the math correct, and you're correct that it could level out. My estimate allows for it leveling out. Granted, it's only a ballpark estimate, but at least you understood the basis.

Re:Webkit browsers

[biryokumaru]

He's saying you're an idiot.

Re:Webkit browsers

[gstrickler]

To whom were you addressing that comment?

Re:Webkit browsers

[amentajo]

And again you fail. Math is correct this time, but the statistical extrapolation is flawed.

If the math is the same as what you're doing, then the statistical extrapolation is no different from what you did; I just used more months to illustrate that, as you point out, that extrapolation is flawed, since applying it can potentially result in impossibly large numbers.

So you've hit on what I'm trying to say: you shouldn't project that a browser's market share will increase by k% each month into the future. All browsers' market share figures must add up to 100%. So, right off the bat, the projected share will be greater than 100% after some amount of months.

Unless there's some reason why using 6 months is OK but using 27 months is not? Because with k=40 (see above for what I mean by k), the number is over 100% after 6 months too.

There are other better reasons why you shouldn't use this figure for projections, but I haven't been able to both give those reasons and keep this post kinda short, so I just left it at the one.

Re:Webkit browsers

[gstrickler]

No, because you made an assumption about the extrapolation that the math (and statistic trend projection) don't support. You assumed a 7% monthly growth indefinitely. I never made such a claim. There are many reasons that 6 months is ok, but 27 months is not. The first is that clearly by 27 months, you've exceeded 100%, which isn't possible. You can only sustain a growth curve on a limited result for a short time. As you approach the limit, the growth must slow down, and eventually stop. You also assumed geometric growth, 7% per month. While that's the current value, my numbers are not based upon geometric growth, but rather short term linear growth, that is increasing their market share approximately 1% per month. By the time they're approaching 25% market share, that's only 4% geometric growth. Note also that I said about 6 months, meaning that I don't expect it happen in exactly 6 months, it may take 9. Your assumptions about my statement are the flaw, not my initial statement.

Re:Webkit browsers

[gstrickler]

More on the extrapolation errors. From a practical standpoint, the difference between 7% geometric growth for 6 months and increasing market share ~1% per month for 6 months is fairly small in this instance. 17% * (1.07 ^ 6) = 25.5% vs ~23%. Either of which satisfies my criteria of being "near 25%" in 6 months, and given the trend of the last few months, is entirely possible. 23% in ~6 months is in fact likely, although by no means certain. Assuming Firefox remains (as it has) very near 25%, then Firefox + Chrome + Safari + Opera are likely to exceed 50% combined market in ~6 months, although it may take 9 months.

Had you bothered to ask for clarification rather than asserting I was wrong and using bogus statistics and faulty assumptions in an attempt to show how wrong I was, I would have gladly explained it sooner. However, you were more interested in showing how flawed my statement was rather than actually considering that I might actually have some idea of what I'm talking about.

Re:Webkit browsers

[tuppe666]

I have a criticism. I cannot predict even the next few months of what will happen. We know both Firefox and Internet Explorer and coming out shortly. Firefox is a fairly major revision...Will that mean more users less users. IE9 coming out...but its only for Vista and above to pressure XP users to getting a new OS, will that drive users from these alternative browsers by being good enough on their current offering in that 40%, or will users of XP switch to a HTML5 browser...or both. Hell if you look at countries there is vastly different usage pattens, each driven for different reasons. Thats ignoring the unknown factors IE/Chrome could be do something abusive with their browsers that go too far. Facebook could launch a browser etc etc Thats ignoring the biggest chisel to Microsofts unshakable monopoly mobile internet...Currently Microsoft have nothing in that substantial in that space, certainly we expect a rise in everything but Microsoft in that space, and the launch of the Googles iPad competitor is today! These are exciting times for browsers. Now would be a good time for Govenments to step in and cut IE oout of the OS once and for all.

Re:Webkit browsers

[Rockoon]

I think he was addressing it to the person that can't figure out to whom it is addressed.

Re:Webkit browsers

[tixxit]

Well, lim n->inf 10.7 * (1.07^n) = inf. With his math, Webkit based browsers will hit 100% market share in ~33 months (and have >100% share every month thereafter).

Re:Webkit browsers

[Anonymous Coward]

See response to GP.

As a web developer,

[unity100]

im thanking my lucky stars, heavens, whatever god/deities that are present out there, for this day.

even as of this VERY moment, i am having to battle with standard incompliance of various ie versions (including next ones) and the different 'interpretations' they have of the same fucking pages than other browsers.

really ... gimme a break ...

Re:As a web developer,

[KingMotley]

I would be thankful *IF* chrome actually fixed THEIR noncompliance bugs that they have been sitting on for years.

Re:As a web developer,

[unity100]

professionally, and business-wise, a noncompliant bug that does not appear on client side, is a bug that client does not worry about, even if s/he knows about it.

Re:As a web developer,

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not because Firefox is at least as much of a ballache as IE nowadays, particularly in terms of Javascript support and I develop initially for Firefox. I can't count the number of times I've done something that according to standards should work, but hasn't, and have checked it out in other browsers and it's worked there but not Firefox. Opera is about the only browser that's never given me any real headaches to support, I've built for other browsers initially and Opera has always just worked right for me, although personally I don't like it's design as a browser.

Also, with Mozilla and Google's contributions to HTML standards with HTML5 vs. Microsoft's official comments on it, whilst I don't like or use IE I'm not convinced that complete loss of IE from the marketplace is a good thing.

No one wanted to see the days of IE6 and Microsoft's unilateral manipulation of the web continue, but from what I've seen so far with Firefox decreasing quality (IMO- in terms of stability and performance), and the retarded way HTML5 has gone (Microsoft refused to endorse it for a while and it's concerns about it's problems were spot on) I'm not sure that the complete death of IE is a good thing either.

Competition is good, yes, even when Microsoft is one of the competitors.

Re:As a web developer,

[tepples]

Except the defect does appear on the client side of the web developers when they test an internal copy of the web site that they're working on. Viewers of the web site among the public don't experience it only because web developers have worked around it. Do you want to go back to the standards compliance of IE 6, when the same was true just to a much larger extent?

Re:As a web developer,

[KingMotley]

We don't fix bugs for chrome. So our users actually do see it.

Re:As a web developer,

[kronosopher]

While your sentiment is a little premature, I can't agree with you more. The vast number of quirky behaviors in IE makes the task of web development a miserable chore. For that reason, web developers spend more time fighting with their own platform and consequently can't focus on elevating the overall quality of their applications. Such incompatibilities are what drive otherwise great developers away from the web to more conventional application platforms. The only developers that remain are those who have enormous patience, not those who are necessarily good at development. This has the net affect of slowing down the overall adoption and quality of web applications, not to mention burning out the bravest among us who persist in such endeavors.

I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

Chrome is nice, a bit under featured, poor ad blocking (although it has gotten better its still slower and not as good as firefox.

In general, Firefox is faster than chrome all around. Even on older hardware, Firefox scrolls better than Chrome.

Firefox's bookmark manager is much nicer. I loved how chrome syncs your bookmarks but now that FireFox has it built in as well, I'm plenty happy.

Firefox has better color management. Chrome nice but... It still has that slight sluggish feeling about how it renders pages.

The new Firefox betas are looking and performing very well, so well that I switched back from chrome.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[bwayne314]

I find myself forced to use both - I would prefer Chrome, but it doesn't support the web-based components of my schools classes very well, for example even though it can display embedded PDFs, I have yet to figure out how the hell to print them in the way I want (think multiple handouts or powerpoint slides per page and so on), whereas firefox shows me a nice in-set toolbar that is specifically for the document and everything works swimmingly.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

"In general, Firefox is faster than chrome all around. Even on older hardware, Firefox scrolls better than Chrome. "

You must be living in magical christmas land. Chrome is way faster than firefox. Probably because it has less features as you suggest but in either case I find the hour wait times for firefox and IE to load pretty bad.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying chrome is slower than Firefox makes me laugh my ass off. What version of Firefox do you have? Fauxfox 5?

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[mTor]

I too prefer Firefox because I don't trust Google. Chrome sends so much data to Google (every keystroke that you type into OmniBar) and I prefer not to give Google any of my data. Firefox has no such issues.

Issue with Chrome's ad blocking is that ad blocking in Chrome works by DOM modification and all the ads are downloaded before they're hidden. That also means that all the ad companies have your IP and browser fingerprint as well and that also means that you waste bandwidth downloading ads. Firefox, again, has no such issues because it filters actual requests.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I've compared the two on new and older hardware, firefox scrolls smoother, loads faster. Compare heavy sites like Huffingtonpost.com. Try it with both adblock plus on and off in each browser.

Scroll... It becomes quite obvious that firefox scrolls better, and loads faster, but if you really want proof try it on older hardware. It becomes very obvious.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

...the "omnibar" is just a google search. when you actually use google search, it keeps that information too.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

To be fair though, Chrome's ad-block extensions do actually block ads from downloading now. For a while they just hid the ads from the viewer. However I still tend to find ad-block faster in firefox. I find that ad-block shows down chrome.

There is just something about webkit that doesnt scroll very well either. I cant tell what that is, but safari is guilty of the same problem. Firefox has a very nice scroll/render, where as chrome seems more choppy... although not horrible, just not as nice as firefox.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Also, chrome takes more cpu usage while scrolling than firefox. Chrome takes about 35% to 40% on a quadcore to scroll this page.

FireFox, takes 18%-24%

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, I don't know what you're smoking, but there isn't a computer I've used where Chrome doesn't still blow Firefox away in shear speed.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[gad_zuki!]

I switched back to Chrome from Firefox after trying Chrome a while ago. I really like the security features of Chrome, built-in secure pdf reader, sandboxed flash, etc. Flash ships with the browser and auto-updates itself. Its nice when things just work. The inspect elements feature is great for working with CSS. The extensions market for Chrome has exploded lately and IETab just works. I'm not even sure which IETab to use in Firefox, the last time I tried it it became nagware. Chrome is crazy fast too. Maybe FF4 will compete with it, but FF feels like yesterdays news. Now I just run Chrome and IE/IETab for testing.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Whats your cpu usage while scrolling? compare chrome to firefox 4 beta using this page.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Chrome is a very nice browser with plenty to offer design wise. I'm a fan, but I do find Firefox to be faster on new and old hardware. It scrolls and renders pages a lot smoother than Chrome has ever done.

Chrome loads pages fast, but in terms of cpu performance, Firefox seems to perform better.

It's interesting, I'm comparing them right now, so that I'm pretty accurate in my statements, and I find chrome likes to chug a bit when scrolling back and forth fast... Firefox is smooth as smooth gets. For example Chrome's scroll bar gets choppy and cant keep up with my mouse movements if I scroll very fast from top to bottom (repeat). In firefox, theres no lag at all.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[seifried]

Uhhh... I find that hard to believe. For anything with large tables, Chrome clobbers Firefox. For anything with JavaScript Chrome really clobbers Firefox. and so on. I run them side by side (quad core, 8 gigs ram, 120 gig SSD) and chrome starts faster, loads pages faster, and is a heck of a lot more stable (one bad app/PDF/etc. and firefox grinds to a halt, all tabs, with chrome you lose only a single tab since they are each a separate process). The only reason I haven't switched to Chrome 100% is because of firebug.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[tuppe666]

He is running the beta...and it is smooth as silk. I suspect and benchmarks tend to agree the difference in speeds are negligible. I use Firefox and IMO its the best browser. Chromes strength the thing that tugging me more and more towards me making it my main browser is it being able to consistently release.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can turn off the omnibar.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Believe it. :) There's no reason for me to make it up.

You're right Chrome is very fast to load as a program. Same here, Quad core 8 gigs, except, 6TB Sata raids, no SSD, GTX 470, 30inch monitor... at 2560x1600. Thats a lot of pixels to scroll nice and smooth. Firefox 4 scrolls better with less cpu usage, and thats even with smooth scroll turned off in Firefox.

No idea why that is, but thats how it is. I've always found webkit to scroll a little chunkier than firefox, be it chrome or safari.

Chrome's page loading speed seems about the same, not sure about cpu usage on that as I havent checked. Chrome certainly launches faster. I'm not a huge fan of Firefox's download manager. It really needs to be revamped.

Chrome's UI looks a lot nicer that is for sure, although as I said before, I prefer FireFox's bookmark manager as it seems more powerful for organizing and editing of bookmarks.

Even pages with flash on them scroll better in Firefox 4 than chrome on my pc. No idea why that is.. but... its how it is :)

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[__aamnbm3774]

I will give Firefox another try then. Lately Chrome has been getting slower and slower, even after I clear my downloads and history. The more features they add, the bigger the hit I have noticed. I do not care about any of the new 'Apps'. I never cared for many of the 'extensions' except some basic ad-blocking. Its getting bloated and I want something that performs better.

One thing that still confuses me. When I launch one Chrome window, I have about 3 or 4 chrome.exe applications running. Yet if I open a separate tab in the background and try to scroll on my current window, it lags and jumps around, even though the CPU is under 50% on a dual core machine. Not sure they got the multi-threading down the way I would have liked just yet...

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[icebraining]

The omnibar isn't only a search bar, it's also the URL bar. Unless you're a luser who types the domain in google search and clicks the first result, Google wouldn't get those domains.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

We can't really take your opinion seriously with the grand claim of hour wait times unless of course you are living in magical land of everlasting torment.

I don't live in magical christmas land but do live in the magical land of U.S. of A. and have never experienced Firefox (or chrome for that matter) ever taking more than a few seconds to load (less on more recent hardware). Can't say the same for IE on older hardware.

I can't speak for anyone else sticking with Firefox, but for myself, it just works right out of the box and always has. I don't use any extensions and have found no compelling reason to change.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[afidel]

Actually Chrome has allowed addons to block ads pre-download since the fall. I too was unaware of this but having been informed I tried it out again and I have to say it is FAST now that it doesn't have to deal with DOM manipulation to block ads. The fact that it sync's plugins is very sweet for maintaining the same browsing experience between computers.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Firebug is balls compared to the built in Chrome developer tools (IMHO).
The biggest problem is that most developers are used to firebug, and for some reason seem to find the switch painful.
I guess there is a little more keyboard involved in getting Chrome dev tools to do what you want, compared with FireBug... but whatever.

I haven't used firebug in forever, and I don't miss it. I'm a full time web developer, so I do run FF, Opera, Chrome, and the rest... but I do all of my browsing in Chrome.

If there was one thing Firefox could hold over the other browsers it's still that it has more "plugins" and more "mature plugins"

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

Chrome is nice, a bit under featured, poor ad blocking (although it has gotten better its still slower and not as good as firefox.

In general, Firefox is faster than chrome all around. Even on older hardware, Firefox scrolls better than Chrome.

Firefox's bookmark manager is much nicer. I loved how chrome syncs your bookmarks but now that FireFox has it built in as well, I'm plenty happy.

Firefox has better color management. Chrome nice but... It still has that slight sluggish feeling about how it renders pages.

The new Firefox betas are looking and performing very well, so well that I switched back from chrome.

Firefox, even in 4.0 beta, continues to have immense memory leak problems. I CANNOT run it for more than a day without it turning into turning nearly unusable. I have 12gb of RAM and and have a Core I7. I will continue using Chrome.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[drinkypoo]

I switched back to Firefox from Chrome after trying to be happy with Chrome for quite some time. I really like how Chrome is snappier on lightweight hardware and I still use it in such conditions, but ad blocking is seriously inadequate and so is script protection, to say nothing of cookie management. Chrome has mediocre support for User Scripts and some scripts can't be made to work on it because of certain things which I believe aren't in Webkit. I've definitely had Flash not work in Chrome and work OK in Firefox. I'm on Linux so I have a built-in secure PDF reader, too; in fact, any PDF reader I install on my system just shows up inside my browser but I can control which one I get, if any. Running Linux gets me automatic flash updates, too, although Flash on Linux does still blow pretty big chunks even with nVidia graphics.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Zelgadiss]

I tried the beta too.

It's fast but I wouldn't say it's smooth, it's performance can be erratic at times.
But it's beta so I suppose it's forgivable, but I do hope they fix it up before they ship it.

Will be sticking with Chrome 9 beta for the time being.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Cant use a slash wtf]

Apart from being slightly under-featured, I have found chrome to be a good deal faster than firefox and I see much more of the page than I would with firefox.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[biryokumaru]

Maybe Chrome is just designed to out-perform for real usage conditions, not scrolling up and down like a jackass.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally prefer Chrome/Chromium because it's tremendously less resource-hungry on JS-heavy pages, which is what I look at and work on most of the day. There's a noticeable 2-3 second delay when pulling up the same exact page in our product in Firefox compared to Chrome on my quad-core i7 box with 9GB of RAM. Overall responsiveness is much higher on these pages as well: click a plus sign to expand a menu in Chrome, and it opens immediately; click the same plus sign in Firefox, and it opens considerably slower. Doesn't seem to matter what the conditions are...caching, RAM usage, CPU usage, disk I/O... the results always seem about the same. I haven't tried the latest Firefox builds, though.

But when it comes to extensions I do miss Firefox quite a bit.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[msobkow]

Firefox is my default browser, but I go to one website that has some sort of video banner ad that throws Firefox into fits. I use Chrome to view that one website, because it correctly renders the video instead of freaking out. So kudos to Google for a technically superior implementation of video handling..

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

The built in Chrome developer tools are balls compared to firefox plugins (inclusive of Firebug). There's NO DEBATE there, just bias and spin on your end.

The way chrome formats output by default is nice in some cases (XML) but these small blessings are hardly switch-worthy.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Unfortuantely I have seen this, and it still seems to be a problem for Firefox but Firefox does in general perform better for me than chrome

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Take your asshole attitude and fuck your mothers dusty cunt you inhumane anti social piece of basement dwelling shit. Whats a matter, pussy rejecting you?

So you dont scroll when you go to a website? Funny.. thats usually the first thing I do... I read and scroll.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Compaqt]

This. I have the version pinned to 5.0.342.7 beta in Ubuntu. I think that was a good version. They're adding more and more cruft in Chromium (which I haven't pinned), and also taking stuff away which was useful (the Go button, the separate Page and Application menus).

I'm doubtful about the integrated Flash or PDF reader.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

BTW how did you find this comment? DID YOU SCROLL DOWN TO IT? You fucking tool.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[mcrbids]

64 bit Fedora Core Linux 13, Quad-core i7 laptop, 8 GB RAM.

Scrolling the screen continuously in Chrome 8 makes it take up about 10% of CPU. (that's 10% of *one* of the 8 virtual cores available) Doing the same thing in FF 3.6 takes up about 80% on one of the cores.

And, in my experience, the latest Chrome is significantly faster than FF 3.6 on *any* platform, enough that we've started recommending it for our web-based application.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[fredc97]

Bookmarks ? Seriously, is anyone still using bookmarks ? Pardon my tone but after a quick survey of my fellow workers the only bookmarks we have are the one that come by default. Search history is a far more reliable source when paired with auto complete.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[bemymonkey]

I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

Chrome is nice, a bit under featured, poor ad blocking (although it has gotten better its still slower and not as good as firefox.

In general, Firefox is faster than chrome all around. Even on older hardware, Firefox scrolls better than Chrome.

Same here. On older hardware, Chrome is incredibly slow (even with Flashblock + ABP) compared to Firefox... not to mention it uses exactly as much RAM (lower RAM usage was the main reason I was contemplating switching away from Firefox). So slow, in fact, that a lot of Flash video stutters in Chrome while being smooth in Firefox...

Any ideas why?

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

Chrome is nice, a bit under featured, poor ad blocking (although it has gotten better its still slower and not as good as firefox.

In general, Firefox is faster than chrome all around. Even on older hardware, Firefox scrolls better than Chrome.

Firefox's bookmark manager is much nicer. I loved how chrome syncs your bookmarks but now that FireFox has it built in as well, I'm plenty happy.

Firefox has better color management. Chrome nice but... It still has that slight sluggish feeling about how it renders pages.

The new Firefox betas are looking and performing very well, so well that I switched back from chrome.

Nice try, Firefox developer.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Omestes]

The new Firefox betas are looking and performing very well, so well that I switched back from chrome.

The betas are part of the reason I switched to Chrome/ium. All of the the betas have been dog slow, ugly, and buggy as hell (at least on my computer). In the beginning it was the requisite extension churn, but now that most of my extensions are supported it still is slower than hell and extremely buggy. And ugly, did I forget to mention ugly? Mozilla forgot what made Firefox nice, it was light and simple, off-loading all features to extensions, now it is bloated, heavy, and full of annoying feature bloat (Panorama, shouldn't that be an extension, same with sync?). I'm seriously thinking that release 5 will be a rebranded version of Seamonkey, with integrated email, IRC, mixed with something stupid and social like Flock. I decided that I might want to switch over to something more polished. IE was out, though IE9 is actually pretty decent, so that left Chrome (or Opera, which also fails on the simple thing).

I haven't noticed Chrome being too slow on any of the 5 computers I'm running it on (the lightest being an old MacMini Core Duo 1.6GHZ, with 2Gb of RAM, the most modern being my Phenom II x4 3.4GHz box with 6Gb of DDR3, with pretty much a range between them, it even worked good on the Mini before I threw in a different processor, meaning a Core Solo 1.1Ghz). It runs well on various flavors of Linux as well. I haven't really noticed a difference between Firefox 3 and Chrome. Chrome is much subjectively "snappy" feeling than Firefox 4 beta.

I'm not a Google fan boy, and I've been using Firefox nonstop since it was Phoenix and have switched pretty much everyone I know over to using it.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Quince alPillan]

Have you tried this? http://getfirebug.com/releases/lite/chrome/

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

> it has gotten better

Apparently a new verb has just been added to the dictionaries so that you don't have to say "gotten better" any more: IMPROVED.

Actually it has always been there, you were presumably just too lazy to use it.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

On older hardware, maybe, but Firefox is seriously lacking in the speed department on slower hardware.

Firefox 3.7 (and the 4.0 beta) all suck on slow hardware like intel Atoms, scrolls like a dog and generally just bloats away eating memory.

Chrome on the other hand works, and for example slashdot with it's horrible design and javascript garbage is atleast readable under Chrome, whereas Firefox just totally locks up. Just a bit of flashblock and you can browse the web again :/

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod up parent, for fast erratic scrolling, firefox pwns!

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is an ad broker. I say this because sometimes people forget and last week someone mentioned to me how ads were showing on chrome while watching youtube, but not on firefox.

Google is a donkey driver.
Chrome features such as speed or simple interface are the carrot tied on the stick in front of the donkey.

Guess who is the donkey? In double digits..

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[ludwigf]

Firefox has better color management.

Last time I checked firefox ignored color profiles by default. Buy there is a flag somewhere in about:config. Chrome does interpret them by default. So in Chrome my images looked like it they were intended to - not so in firefox.

PS I read it was default off in firefox because of performance reasons. Still Chrome works much faster then firefox for me.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Zoidbot]

haha, and Opera kills them all.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jugalator]

I too prefer Firefox because I don't trust Google. Chrome sends so much data to Google (every keystroke that you type into OmniBar) and I prefer not to give Google any of my data. Firefox has no such issues.

Hmm... Firefox also sends every keystroke you type into its search box to Google. It does this to offer search suggestions, for the same reason Google Chrome does it. Or Google.com, or the regional searches.

In both Firefox and Chrome, this behavior can be disabled.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[skegg]

Ditto.

I'd use Chrome -- and Android -- in a heartbeat ... if they weren't so darn bent on sending Google every ounce of personal data.

Yes: it's possible to use them without sending any / much data to Google, but I just feel as though I'd always need to be guarded.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Use Chromium, which doesn't send data to Google.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Dupont]

Actually, I agree.
I was running the Chrome dev builds. I switched back to Firefox (well, to the 4.0 betas). I'm on an old - dying - c2d Macbook. Firefox is indeed faster.
Apart from speed: I really like Chromes UI but it's hard for me to ignore the fact that Firefoxs add-ons are ahead at this point.
I keep trying other browsers and I'll gladly change again if I find something better for me.

Well, these are my experiences and I'm no fanboy of any browser or OS.
I noticed you got some comments from people who claim you're lying, a Firefox dev and so on.
Proves there's a war out there but this war is being fought between a couple of companies - it's always tragic to see people taking sides, no matter if it's Mac/Win, Xbox/PS, Firefox/Chrome. Use what's best for you and stop wasting your time hating for no reason.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Fnkmaster]

The problem was that for some time, Chrome focused solely on Javascript speed. And for a while, they were by far the fastest Javascript game in town. But they never had the fastest rendering engine - quite far from it. So on pages where Javascript wasn't the limiting reagent, Chrome often felt sluggish, especially at scrolling pages.

Firefox 4 now has a very nice Javascript engine - not quite as fast as Chrome for some applications, but the gap is now measured in the small percentage points, i.e. 5-25% slower, not 2x, 3x, or 5x slower. And Firefox 4 on Windows has the unequivocally fastest rendering and scrolling I've seen. Which is the base case of browser use for me.

Not to mention all the extension flexibility that Firefox has.

People keep declaring Firefox dead and it seems to be doing quite well.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[somersault]

What OS? Firefox both loads slower and just generally works slower for me on Ubuntu. This is using the current standard releases of course, not beta versions.

When I used Windows it was even worse, I had to use a Firefox preloader to get around the 20-30 second startup time.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a web developer who regularly tests multiple websites across multiple versions of the five major browsers (IE, FF, Chrome, Safari, and Opera), I can honestly say Chrome is the way of the future of web browsers. Firefox is sluggish in many respects. Takes forever to launch. Requires restart upon plugin install. Obnoxiously demands attention for out-of-date plugins on startup. Even Chrome's "new" interface is easier to comprehend than FF4's new take on the application button (or whatever the name is of the control into which the FF team jam-packed everything). Hell, even IE9's interface works better... but then, it's taking after Chrome, isn't it?

Forget the usual Big Brother, tinfoil hat, "then they came for me" Orwellian dystopia drivel which is usually spouted when giving reasons why not to use a Google product. Their stuff just works better. FF users seem to be holding on to a bloated, out-of-date legacy.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[biryokumaru]

Wow, way to not be completely insane, man.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I prefer not to give Google any of my data" -- bwah ha ha ha ha ha... because once you're not using Chrome Google isn't able to gather any data about you... [giggle]

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Loconut1389]

I switched back because of the bookmark toolbars unremovable "Other Bookmarks".

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[mcvos]

I find myself using Opera slightly less lately. It's too slow when you have a ridiculous number of tabs open. Opera 5 on my Pentium II had less trouble handling 200 websites.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

If they're hiring 3d Animators and pay amazingly well... I'll consider their offer. Until then, I do not work at all on any web browser for any of the major companies.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

For a while now, Firefox has color management on by default. It was true that it was once off by default and you had to turn it on, but now it appears to be on.

Color management is important to me. I'm a photographer and a 3d animator, so if a browser isnt color managed, its a serious problem. Granted not everyone has their monitors properly profiled but for those that do and even those that dont... it helps display images closer to srgb standards. Anyone that has a wide gamut monitor will desperately want color management in their browser, other wise images look terribly over saturated and too dark.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Everything you've said I agree with except Firefox does seem to scroll and render smoother.

If I were picking a UI, I'd take chrome, although it needs to improve in many areas. Chrome is cleaner looking, more streamlined, less nonsense... If google got the cpu usage down and improved scrolling I would probably jump back again.

I have as much bad to say about chrome as I do firefox... except that I find firefox to perform a bit better when rendering and scrolling.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[ludwigf]

Thats good to hear. I ran into problems where two images displaying similar things, on in png and one as jpg looked really different but only in firefox. I'm still curious: On which things is firefox better with color management than chrome?

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had the exact opposite experience, performance-wise, especially on operating systems other than Windows. And it must be stated...

Chrome + Vimium = Penultimate Cosmic Power sans mouse.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chrome sends so much data to Google (every keystroke that you type into OmniBar).....

Options > Uncheck "Use a prediction service to help complete searches...".

Problem solved.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[si618]

I too prefer Firefox because I don't trust Google. Chrome sends so much data to Google (every keystroke that you type into OmniBar) and I prefer not to give Google any of my data. Firefox has no such issues.

Not if you turn it off.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[soundguy4film]

Chrome is so much faster than firefox how is firefox faster for you? Are you using the beta of 4? I'll agree that firefox is better all around but it's not faster.

Re:I switched back to Firefox from Chrome.

[Celestialwolf]

Really? That's interesting that Firefox goes faster than Chrome for you. On my side I've found the opposite to be true. The only real reason I stick with FF is due to the better selection/implementation of add-ons (specifically adblock plus).

Marketing campaign??

[Anonymous Coward]

What marketing campaign? I haven't even seen a single commercial for BING! in the last few days, let alone for IE.

I'm not complaining.

New Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally off topic but why is every article tagged "slashdot"? Used to be "story".

I've tried Chrome, FF, and IE...

[unitron]

...and this new version of Slashdot looks horrible in all of them, and doesn't work as well as the previous version in any of them.

Re:I've tried Chrome, FF, and IE...

[rvw]

...and this new version of Slashdot looks horrible in all of them, and doesn't work as well as the previous version in any of them.

So Slashdot has actually done a good job at getting the visitor experience similar in all browsers. That's quite a compliment!

Re:I've tried Chrome, FF, and IE...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using Slashdot via Firefox 3.6 and it has zero problems with the new Slashdot layout. It definitely works better than the 2.0 release.

Err?

[cartman]

IMO this version of slashdot is vastly better than the last one. I'm surprised that you liked slash 2.0 which (IMO) was far worse than any other version.

Re:Err?

[zoom-ping]

Mod parent up.

Re:Err?

[ElectricTurtle]

At least in the last version I could search my own comment history. Now that's broken. And when I try to revisit comments to look at replies, I have to expand everything from zero. That's fun. And most of the comment children are hidden even if they are at a threshold to be abbreviated unless you expand all the comment parents. So I've changed the full threshold to 2. Sorry, version 3 sucks ass. 2 might have been slow and buggy, but it didn't completely inconvenience me by design. 3 does.

Re:Err?

[unitron]

Didn't say I liked it. I just dislike it less than the new version.

Re:Err?

[CaptnMArk]

I like the general look, but it breaks Zoom Text Only (left sidebar) which is really annoying
(I started using custom css to hide it on one of my machines).

Chrome also lacks Zoom Text Only, so I don't use it.

NotScripts

[Nimatek]

It certainly has the first from your list: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/odjhifogjcknibkahlpidmdajjpkkcfn

Re:NotScripts

[icebike]

That's pretty cool, and it seems to make SlashDot posting page behave better as well.

Bit of a hack to set up but the step by step works fine.

Re:NotScripts

[icebike]

Replying to myself, ...

I take it back. It does work, but it is such a mess its not worth it.

It pretty much disables most of slashdot posting, even when slashdot is whitelisted.
I turned it off.

Re:NotScripts

[Nimatek]

Well, just like with the Firefox NoScript extension, you have to allow scripts from certain sites. For slashdot it is slashdot.org and fsdn.com.

Realistic analysis of he daa

[fermion]

According to the charts, IE declined 10 points in 2009. has been stable in 2010, and is showing a blip which may or may not be a trend.

Firefox has been suck a 20-something percent for 2 years.

Chrome has been growing for until spring of 2010, when it took a nosedive to low even negative growth. This correlates to IE market loss, so it is reasonable to suggest that chrome users are abandoning IE. The numbers also suggest that users are unsatisfied with Chrome.

The growth numbers also suggest that Safari has a steady growth indicating a satisfied user base that continues to use Safari. In fact the negative growth numbers of Chrome, and positive growth numbers of Safari means that the recent growth numbers for both are about the same, and Safari growth could exceed Chrome. This while other browsers growth is averaging 0.

From this is seems likely that MS can kill Chrome simply by delivering a competitive browser, without the tricks and subterfuge used to kill Navigator. Safari, Firefox, and Opera, OTOH, have clearly held their own and show sustained genuine growth over the long term, and therefore will likely continue o do so into the future.

Re:Realistic analysis of he daa

[tecker]

This correlates to IE market loss, so it is reasonable to suggest that chrome users are abandoning IE.

The simple fact could be that Chrome does not require administrator privileges to install. Users at offices where we are not given admin rights can install Chrome over IE and use it without slogging through a helpdesk ticket for something IT deems unnecessary. This may account for the growth we see as users are looking for more freedom and the bells and whistles a more modern browser with the ability to install extensions without needing better permissions.

Perhaps we are seeing a leveling out as those who want a different browser are finally being exhausted and entering a "long tail phase".

Re:Realistic analysis of he daa

[jamienk]

Your analysis seems messed-up to me. I assume you are referring to this chart http://www.conceivablytech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/browser2.jpg Chrome's rate of growth might have slowed a bit, but it still grew by what looks like 10%. IE has had negative growth pretty consistently. Safari's growth rate seems to be much lower than Chrome's. Since your understanding of the data seems so far off the mark, I doubt your conclusions are accurate.

Re:Realistic analysis of he daa

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the charts, IE declined 10 points in 2009. has been stable in 2010, and is showing a blip which may or may not be a trend.

I disagree -- though there is only one set of charts, the article cites several sources, and some of them (eg statscounter.com) show an even worse picture for IE than the charts on this article. I believe they've picked a fairly conservative data set to quote figures from, but the trends can be picked up more easily by looking at multiple data sources.

Re:Realistic analysis of he daa

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you practising for an IELTS test or what's with that bullshit buzzword slang?

Re:Realistic analysis of he daa

[tepples]

The simple fact could be that Chrome does not require administrator privileges to install. Users at offices where we are not given admin rights can install Chrome over IE

That could just mean that offices aren't locking down their workstations tightly enough. Any machine handling confidential data that doesn't let its users install software shouldn't let its users install software to their user profiles either. Both UNIX and Windows support this: a UNIX administrator can mount home directories noexec, and a Windows administrator can deploy Software Restriction Policies.

Re:Realistic analysis of he daa

[MrNemesis]

This. We have the same situation at work - a bunch of applications still mandate IE6 (welcome to the enterprise gentlemen), and we're still in the middle of rolling out upgrades/replacements/citrix-ised IE6 instances before we can install IE8 by default.

Unofficial solution from users was to install chrome; a couple of people brought it in on USB sticks and it soon ended up installed on a lot of desktops. Management threw a fit so all manner of workarounds were hastily thrown together to stop users using "non-standard browsers" (despite the fact that everyone in the IT and management departments does it).

After several drive-by downloads/infections and a 40% increase in tickets submitted to the helldesk due to users complaining about "broken" websites... we're told the official fix is to "install chrome". Ha! Colleagues in business elsewhere tell me this sort of behaviour is rife, with chrome being used as a stopgap since it's easy to install and run for non-admins. Running firefox myself as chrome annoys the hell out of me and opera (as fast as chrome with the advantage of a decent ad blocker) doesn't play nice with our proxy.

Internet Explorer

[Anonymous Coward]

"has encountered something which probably isn't unsafe. Would you like an explanation of how to recognise the yellow bar at the top of your screen?"

About the only browser I could argue is actually less enjoyable to use is Lynx.

Chrome is heavily advertised.

[Anonymous Coward]

It appeared in newspapers, on billboards and on top of the Google homepage. I know Firefox did a newspaper advert a while back but it is still mostly a word of mouth product. But as everyone said before, fix the bugs in 4.0 or i'll be a Chrome zealot.

According to w3c..

[Ziekheid]

chrome nearly hit the Double-Digit mark by the end of 2009.. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp/

Re:According to w3c..

[Ziekheid]

Woops, here is the correct url: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Re:According to w3c..

[Anonymous Coward]

w3schools is NOT affiliated with the w3c, please stop spreading this misinformation

Re:According to w3c..

[spud603]

Those stats are for visitors to w3schools.com -- probably not a good measure of the 'average' user of the internets.

Re:According to w3c..

[Anonymous Coward]

That site has very little to do with W3C.

Re:According to w3c..

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp/

You associate that site with w3c!? Blasphemy!!!!

Re:According to w3c..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not W3C, it's just some private site, mostly visited by developers. W3C is located at http://w3.org

Re:According to w3c..

[Anonymous Coward]

w3schools isn't W3C.

Re:According to w3c..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just need to point out that W3 Schools is not related to the W3C. And they're terrible.

Re:According to w3c..

[Anonymous Coward]

... amongst web developers.

PS - w3cschools, not w3c. totally different.

Re:According to w3c..

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't feel that W3C Schools is an accurate representation as it is primarily a development site.

I prefer: http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

One day we'll celebrate

[Anonymous Coward]

When IE drops to a cumulative 49%, we should all party with the Ewoks like at the end of Return of the Jedi.

Re:One day we'll celebrate

[Anonymous Coward]

And then a ghostly vision of Spyglass will appear with Firefox and Netscape's ghost.

Re:One day we'll celebrate

[syockit]

Oh wait, now you're predicting the fall of Firefox as well?

Re:One day we'll celebrate

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen the movie? Firefox is Luke Skywalker. The other two are ghosts.

Re:New Slashdot

[Khyber]

Page Rank boosting in Google.

True fact

[__aaqvdr516]

Nobody uses multiple browsers.
Also, once you switch you can't change your mind.

I use FF and IE on my main monitor and chrome on the 2nd. IMO Firefox got worse in the last release and IE9beta is better than it was. I am indifferent about Chrome. I'm not going to lie and say I use IE a whole lot, I don't. I wouldn't be a geek if I didn't at least look at it and form my own opinion though.

I'm only one more failure from dropping Firefox again though. Go ahead Mozilla, lose all my bookmarks during a crash again. I dare you.

Re:True fact

[icebraining]

You wouldn't be a geek if you didn't try uzbl. IE isn't geeky at all.

Re:True fact

[tuppe666]

Nobody uses multiple browsers. Also, once you switch you can't change your mind.

I use FF and IE on my main monitor and chrome on the 2nd. IMO Firefox got worse in the last release and IE9beta is better than it was. I am indifferent about Chrome. I'm not going to lie and say I use IE a whole lot, I don't. I wouldn't be a geek if I didn't at least look at it and form my own opinion though.

I'm only one more failure from dropping Firefox again though. Go ahead Mozilla, lose all my bookmarks during a crash again. I dare you.

You use multiple browsers and have never backed up your bookmarks...not really showing off any geek cred there.

New slashdot and Chrome password

[EreIamJH]

Anyone unable to get Chrome to autofill the new Slashdot password dialog? Not working for me.

Re:New slashdot and Chrome password

[sakdoctor]

I don't think that's Chrome specific. I use FF, and the slashdot login process is rather hit and miss lately.

Re:New slashdot and Chrome password

[Anonymous Coward]

For me it's always miss in ff with the popup thingie. I just click the button with that blank and it takes me to a page which ff fills out. Also, I've also done the same thing in Android 2.2's browser once now.

What about Netscape?

[krizoitz]

Netscape Navigator had to have had double digit market share. Not to mention NCSA Mosaic. Probably a couple of the early text only browsers had doubt digit share too. At best Chrome is the fifth probably less than that even to reach double digit share. And yes I realize the headline was probably meant to apply only to current browsers. It's fun to be literal :D

Re:What about Netscape?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just imagine the first browser! It had a triple digit market share! Nobody is going to top that! Evar!

Re:What about Netscape?

[Seumas]

Of course Netscape had double digit market share. It was the dominating browser, until about 1999 with a peak of around 80% market share earlier on.

Re:What about Netscape?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lynx is current too. =) Stable release less than 12 months ago.

The Article

[stms]

Notice how the last graph in the article has colors for unreleased versions of chrome (9 & 10). I guess the guy who was making the graph assumed that by the time he finished it versions 9 and 10 would be out.

Re:New Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

And also in Bing.

A faster way to browse the web - Google targets IE

[Anonymous Coward]

When I go to Google with IE - I get "A faster way to browse the web" : "Install Google Chrome". I don't get that message when I arrive with Firefox.

Google is targeting IE and Microsoft's closed source control of the user web, and frequent non-standards compliance. Open source is left alone.

Back in 1997...

[Anonymous Coward]

I said "In twenty years, Microsoft will not be a company. A 'microsoft' will be a type of joke or gaffe." Considering this story, and the one about people leaving Redmond (and other recent signs and portents), in a few years I'll be recognized as the One True Prophet. You might as well get used to bowing. Now!

XD

captcha: colons :)

Re:Back in 1997...

[Stooshie]

You mean like JC but you'll be known as AC?

Chrome has more real estate...

[Anonymous Coward]

...than FF or IE.
What I find really annoying about FF is when it notices that there's an new update available, it causes the current session to slowly grind to a halt...until you re-load it.
Chrome has good tools for a developer too.

omnibar communication

[Compaqt]

AFAIK, all keystrokes in the omnibar are sent to Google. Ever type the first few characters of a popular website into Chrome (on a fresh installation, no import of bookmarks)? Chrome fills in the rest because it's asking Google (pseudocode) SELECT * FROM domains WHERE LEFT_STR(domain,3)='nyt' ORDER BY hits LIMIT 1, thus giving you 'nytimes.com'.

Domestic Cars lose ground to Foreign Imports!

[chef_raekwon]

Every time I read about browser wars, it reminds me of the domestic cars in the 60s/70s .. leading into the 90s and new millenia. More and more, domestic cars lose ground to better made, better driven imports -- and we as consumers see the benefit. All that was really required was a little competition, and education.. domestics will get better slightly, then hit bankruptcy, then come out of bankruptcy with a viable product. If we transpose that onto the browser wars, MS will have a decent product in about 5 years, but will have completely lost face and market share to just about every foreign maker imaginable.

just some odd thought/ramble. cheers

Re:Domestic Cars lose ground to Foreign Imports!

[bongey]

Car analogy time I guess.
The only car I can think that would be comparable to a IE though is maybe a Yugo.

Bingo... adding data point

[rsborg]

My sister switched because at work, her draconian IT wouldn't give her admin privs and she needed to get away from IE (seriously if an IT dept isn't pre-installing a non-IE browser, they're just doing their users a disservice)... not even an exemption or "I'll install it for you".

So she installed Chrome and is quite happy with it on her work laptop. I have no idea if she's switched from Firefox on her home Mac, but she spends most of computer time at work anyway...

Re:Bingo... adding data point

[Shadow99_1]

While heading an IT department for 3 years I tried to get us off of IE, but the rest of the administration saw no reason and things like 'security and less time spent dealing with IE support issues' only meant something to me. Personally I ran Chrome or Firefox my whole time there and suggested to the more competent that they let me install something other than IE for them to use. Most didn't' care or were just to used to IE...

Trident vs. Webkit? Good luck w/ that

[rsborg]

From this is seems likely that MS can kill Chrome simply by delivering a competitive browser, without the tricks and subterfuge used to kill Navigator.

I think you underestimate the effort that has gone into the open-source project Webkit (the engine for Chrome and Safari) and the corresponding javascript engines (Chrome V8, Safari Nitro).

Microsoft has sat on it's laurels for years, ignoring and impeding web standards and reaping monopoly rents on Windows and Office. Now that they can't hold back the innovation, they've got a whole lot of catch-up to do.

IE should never have integrated itself into Window

[conark]

i think the biggest mistake Microsoft had made was integrating IE into Windows with ActiveX controls, etc. maybe that allowed them to get a huge share of the market for a while, but the long term effects it had i don't think were worth the effort. too much insecurity and lack of trust. i hope that Chrome doesn't make similar mistakes.

No matter how unfair the starting conditions

[phonewebcam]

Cream always rises, sh*t always sinks.

Anything but IE

[kikito]

Please.

Version.

[Seumas]

Oh, I thought the headline indicated the story was going to be about how Chrome went from version 1.0 to like version 18 in two years, because of the stupid numbering scam^h^hheme.

I don't care about marketshare

[Zoidbot]

I care about tangible attributes:

quality
performance
style
features
security
standards compliance

That is why I use Opera, it's the best in all these categories, who cares what it's marketshare is. I also drive a Ferrari.

Poor Opera :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Opera has been groundbreaking in offering new features, has always been by far for me the fastest browser in terms of load times, displaying pages, etc (and generally keep pace very well even in those unrealistic javascript speed tests), have led the way in standards compliance, and have generally been the best overall browser for about 10 years now. I actually paid money for it back ages ago when it was an ad-supported browser.

I can't help but think that if they'd been able to start off free-as-in-beer and never developed the reputation as "that pay browser" they'd have significant market share today.

I'm actually planning on visiting Gothenburg to see if I like enough to apply for a job there and move.

double digit...

[CSMoran]

verson-number-wise?

Re:double digit...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Market share wise, ex. more than 10% of people are now using Chrome

FAYT

[Anonymous Coward]

I installed Chrome, loved the speed and design, realized it didn't have Find-as-you-type or and equivalent to the Find Toolbar Tweaks addon, and uninstalled it to go back to FireFox.

Download Chrome to play this HTML5 game

[tepples]

Then please allow me to fix the joke: Someone visits a web site, maybe related to Pokemon or Milton Bradley's Simon, that appears broken in an old version of Internet Explorer. (If Chromon weren't Flash, I'd use it as an example.) He's instructed to download Google Chrome to play; the icon looks close enough to be related to the subject of the original site. So he downloads it, installs it, and sets it as the default web browser. Start > Internet still goes to the Internet, but now it's generating Chrome hits on Net Applications.

Re:Download Chrome to play this HTML5 game

[Anonymous Coward]

Then please allow me to fix the joke: Someone visits a web site, maybe related to Pokemon or Milton Bradley's Simon, that appears broken in an old version of Internet Explorer. ...

Doctor, the patient is dead.

Re:Trident vs. Webkit? Good luck w/ that

[Anonymous Coward]

Webkit, which I agree is probably the best standard compliant engine, is also Safari, not just Chrome. There has been huge effort, yet the community still gives the OSS firefox greater market share then Safari+Chrome.

I'm using both ...

[nblender]

Chrome at home on OSX because Firefox had this nasty habit of beachballing whenever I clicked a link. I debugged as much as I could; disabled the 3 extensions I had installed, watched processes with top, watched disk stats, etc... Beachball for about 500ms whenever I clicked a link. Watching a flash video, it would pause about every 4 seconds for about 500ms... It was unusable... Couldn't figure it so switched to chrome...

Firefox at work on Ubuntu. Firefox is hateful because you can't remap any of the keys... What retard decided that 'copy' and 'paste' shortcuts should use ascii characters which means a different key sequence to copy/paste between your terminal and your browser; and what retard decided that Firefox should not allow you to override those keys? The Alt key is designed for keyboard shortcuts... Why can you not consistantly use the Alt key modifier on Linux seamlessly across all applications?

At least OSX has it right. Firefox and Chrome both have fairly consistant keyboard mappings on OSX. So I can use ALT-{C,V,N,T,A,Q} in my terminals and browsers consistantly...

Flame me now ...

IE is broken - it's about function not preference

[flappinbooger]

IE 7 wasn't too bad, I'll be honest. I never used it regularly, but when I have used it there weren't any real problems. But IE8 is crap. It didn't work when it came out, and it still doesn't work. Just today I was on a state website looking for weather advisories and had to turn on compatibility mode just to view the page.

Many websites such as colleges and schools and medical websites for insurance and other healthcare work simply do NOT work with IE8. Still.

I was working on a brand new 48 port gigabit switch about 3 months ago using a netbook with windows 7 starter on it. I fired up IE8 and went to the switch. I was attempting to configure it, but settings would not take. It gave no errors or indications of what was going on, just nothing would work. I called the manufacturer and after discussing the setup the person on the phone said "try using a different browser like firefox" and wouldn't you know, everything just started working. Even compatibility mode would not work.

So, since Microsoft's flagship OS, their first good OS since XP came out, is tied to a browser that DOESN'T WORK, how can they be surprised that other browsers are gaining in popularity?

This is a joke, really. XP and the machines it is on are dying. No-one bought vista. People are buying win7 machines in droves. They CANNOT use IE7 on win7. IE8 is annoying and has problems. What are the average non-tech savvy users to do? Luckily the average ignorant user will encounter chrome because it pops up now and then bundled with other downloads like maybe Acrobat reader, various freeware apps, etc.

I was talking with a somewhat tech savvy person the other day who (sorta) makes websites. He said he has found and is stunned with the incompatibility that IE8 has with web standards. Stunned. According to him, If MS thinks IE8 should be the main browser out there why wouldn't they at least adhere or work with web standards?

Whatever. FF is good for surfing. I use Chrome for video, it seems to be better for stuff like netflix or other streaming.

Development Cycles

[Stooshie]

What is interesting from the version transition graphs is that you can clearly see the different development cycles of the three top browser organizations.

Microsoft: http://www.conceivablytech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/browser4.jpg

Mozilla: http://www.conceivablytech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/browser5.jpg

Google: http://www.conceivablytech.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/browser6.jpg

I suspect the auto-updates on chrome are actually helping to increase the user base.

Re:Development Cycles

[Stooshie]

I suppose in essence, what I am saying is that browsers (or any software) that doesn't auto-update is effectively competing with the other versions of itself.

Re:IE is broken - it's about function not preferen

[Anonymous Coward]

IE8 works fine. The problem is that many sites catered to the non standard IE versions prior to 8. Of course websites don't work when Microsoft tries to fix things. IE9 will be even worse by your standards, but better to everyone with a clue on how web pages are made.

Great news!

[emuls]

Except that my server logs still show the following: IE8: 47% IE7: 21% Firefox: 21% IE6: 9% I guess today is just a good day for everyone else, and a normal day for me after-all.

Chrome because it works

[spaceyhackerlady]

I'm typing this on Chrome right now. I like its zen-like simplicity, a window with a text box across the top. Type something in to that box and it does something sensible with it. No fuss, no hassle.

At work I switched from Firefox to Chrome. At home I switched from Safari to Chrome.

...laura

The question is what happens after 2011

[Kjella]

Quoting WP:

A footnote in Mozilla's 2006 financial report states "Mozilla has a contract with a search engine provider for royalties. The contract originally expired in November 2006, however Google renewed the contract until November 2008 and has now renewed the contract through 2011.[8] Approximately 85% of Mozillaâ(TM)s revenue for 2006 was derived from this contract."

The financial FAQ dated November 18, 2010 says:

What is the status of the organization's contract with Google?

We have had a productive relationship with Google since 2004 and that relationship remains healthy. To date, we have renewed our contract three times, in 2005, 2006 and 2008. The current version extends through 2011.

So through 2011 Mozilla has a very good deal. But then Google didn't have a browser of their own and desperately needed Mozilla to break the IE monopoly. I suspect that these negotiations will go quite differently. I'm sure the deal will be extended but I doubt the terms will be anywhere near as favorable as they have been. Google has seen how easily they can now push their own browser into the market, they don't "need" Firefox that much anymore. And from a strict business point of view, where would they go? Bing? Yeah, I'm sure the open source community would love Microsoft as their default search engine. Not to mention that currently Chrome has targeted the IE holdouts. If they go their separate ways, Google will do their best to win Firefox users too. I'd put good money on the browser market looking completely changed in 2-3 years.

A "Speed Up Chrome HOW TO", inside... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

"Chrome nice but... It still has that slight sluggish feeling about how it renders pages." - by Jackie_Chan_Fan (730745) on Tuesday February 01, @09:13PM (#35075652)

To speed up Chrome, you can try what I do (& I think Chrome's fast on Windows 7 to be honest - right up there with Opera in fact in both HTML rendering as well as Javascript, Graphics, you-name-it):

MOVE YOUR CHROME CACHE & USERDATA TO ANOTHER DISK (a faster one, IF possible!)

Chrome is commandline argv/argc (C/C++ stuff) parameterizable is why.

I do this here, myself, for Chrome (moving its cache to a TRUE SSD (not Flash ram slow writespeed based, but instead, DDR3 RAM)) & all my webbrowsers, because the SSD I use is fast on writes too, not just reads:

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe -disk-cache-dir="Z:\SysTmp" --disk-cache-size=40000000 --user-data-dir="Z:\SysTmp"

Completely moving not only the cache, but also userdata also, & controlling the sizing etc. as well.

APK

P.S.=> Try it out, if possible, to another disk for that stuff... it may help speed you up, as well as lessen fragmentation of your main "C drive" programs bearing disk too, for example... apk

Chrome is like a virus

[rhalstead]

I installed chrome, didn't like it and uninstalled it. Thunderbird started crashing. I found a "chrome" search running that had a conflict with thunderbird. Stopping the search (which I wasn't running) allowed thunderbird to go back to working. I still haven't found what was running the search.

Re:A faster way to browse the web - Google targets

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it only does that in IE7 and below.

Don't spread FUD :-\

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Chrom(ium) is open source, show us where typing a keystroke into the OmniBar sends it to google? Or is it only when you press enter i.e. do a google search? How is that different than searching google from Firefox? I'm assuming you use Google to search anyway.

Given Google's record on data privacy [from the government] I don't worry too much about them.

Criticism of Chrome's lack of features is a much worthwhile argument. It's the reason I don't use it and use Firefox instead (Firebug is a must!)