Slashdot Mirror
Chrome Hits 20% Share As IE Continues Slide
jbrodkin writes "Google Chrome's rise in popularity has been remarkably fast and it's just hit a new milestone: more than 20% of all browser usage, according to StatCounter. Chrome rose from only 2.8% in June 2009 to 20.7% worldwide in June 2011, while Microsoft's Internet Explorer fell from 59% to 44% in the same time frame. Firefox dropped only slightly in the past two years, from 30% to 28%. While other browser trackers show Chrome with a lower percentage, there's a reason: StatCounter tracks total surfing, not the number of users. It's the Web's power users who are pushing Chrome to new heights."
Google pays affiliate commissions for every install of their toolbar and chrome. It's perfect bundle for those PC manufacturers who put all kind of stuff on new pc's (like Norton trials etc) and get paid for commissions. IE doesn't give them anything, so they throw in Chrome and make a little extra every PC sold. Chrome and the toolbar also pushed by affiliate marketers who try to get people to install it along their (sometimes shitty) software. So it's no wonder it spreads.
Better to see some Chrome installs out there because: it runs on multiple platforms, does a hell of a job in supporting web standards and is fast. Although it does crash on occasion, especially with web content. It also dies when you have 60+ Google Maps tabs open.
For me as a web developer I prefer to see more Chrome installs than IE, just it makes life easier. The only positive thing about IE is that they have gotten better at supporting web standards. Even though stuff that worked in IE 8 doesn't work in IE 9. and stuff made for IE6 and special modifications in IE7 still break IE8 and IE9. But I'm getting off-topic here.
Seriously? It's Google who just pushes their software. On our network, several users 'suddenly' had Chrome installed. If I remember correctly, it was bundled with Google Earth. None of them of course paying attention to the fact they got more than they bargained for. The very few "power" users - or in our case the people who just want to pretend they know anything about it, could install Google Chrome on their PC's without admin rights... Yes, Google's very sneaky with their setups. The only way to prevent it, is to already make certain directories on each PC and set it up so that no one but adminsn can write to these folders.
I wonder if this rise in popularity can be attributed to the Chrome ads on Google's homepage we've seen in the past...
The article did not provide much analysis but rather a "news report" style...oh well.
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
if you go with fresh ie to google.com it's like going to spam city. it has an advert bar at the top to change your homepage to google(a big one, 2x the size of ie's program bar), what's worse the "yes" choice isn't yes, in finnish it's "sopiihan se" which translates roughtly to "oh that's okay" - softening the menu, but it's straight out of spam advertiser course to do that, yes/no would be sufficient, but it woudl be better that they wouldn't do that at all, it's using their monopoly in search to try to push their browser. and it does a "would you like to install a faster way to browse" pop-over on the google logo for installing google chrome. it's an atrocity, really - and it's like if ms and google have traded places.
also the stats are a bit suspect. (I roll with firefox normally)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Can we please stop saying 'surfing' and use 'browsing' instead? 'Surfing' just sounds silly.
>>It's Google who just pushes their software. On our network, several users 'suddenly' had Chrome installed.
Yeah. I wanted to put the Google photo screensaver on my mom's computer. So a quick Google search, and here it is - http://pack.google.com/screensaver.html
So you click on "get google photos screensaver" and it takes you, not to a link to the download, but to a page for "The Google Pack" which has a bunch of checkboxes for various software options.
None of which are the screensaver. But Chrome is checked by default, as is Google Desktop. So a non-technical user might think that Google Desktop = hey, free screensaver. So they might download that. And get Chrome. (And all the other bloatware like Avast! antivirus found here:http://pack.google.com/pack_installer.html). I knew that it was probably part of Picasa, so I unchecked all of the bloatware options, and just downloaded Picasa, which indeed had the screensaver my mom wanted, and there you go.
But the point is:
1) Google is acting evil (if my mom had tried to do this herself, she'd be stuck with a horrible antivirus product - or two, there's two in the Pack)
2) Chrome installs are up because of their evil.
Giving free advertising to Chrome on Google.com is borderline evil, too. Leverage of monopolistic powers and all.
Many and I mean many businesses are coming up with plans to dump Firefox and use IE again thanks to Asa's big mouth. I read about them on slashdot all the time, and while some of you say it is an opportunity for Chrome, all I have to say is it is proof why you should only stick to Microsoft standards at work. No one ever gets fired for choosing them. ... end gripe
Either way IE 9.01 is now included by default with a Windows Update without a prompt so it's marketshare will increase. It may piss off a lot of users like Firefox 5 did though.
But still, Chrome is popular for many generation Y and home users. I am trying to get my family to dump Firefox and switch to Chrome because things like plugins and updates are automatic. No worries of old flash exploits eithers which is one of Chrome's strength. Still I find the hardware acceleration in Chrome lacking. IE 9 is smooth when I hit arrow up or down and pictures and text flicker like mad with Chrome as they are not fully accelerated.
http://saveie6.com/
I'm confused, if Chrome doesn't do ad-blocking then what's this? Are you saying that AdBlock for chrome is different in some significant way? If yes, please provide a citation.
Firefox could have become the rock solid browser that "just works".
The only reason we have standards like those set by W3C is stability.
There is no need for rapid releases any more because the major problems have been solved years ago. I am still using Firefox 3.0 as my default browser and while I had to install Chrome because Google-Translator mysteriously stopped working, otherwise I had no problems with it.
Because of the good extension-system, Firefox could be a rock-solid browser while all the experimental stuff and new functionality is done in extensions.
But no. Mozilla decided that Firefox has to be like Chrome. Of course not really like Chrome because to get the advantages of Chrome would require a complete rewrite of Firefox, so Mozilla settled for a completely nonsensical release-policy completely with automatic non-wanted upgrades ("What is my computer doing now? Oh, my browser changed again!").
Mozilla should understand that the 90s are over and people are no longer buying a new computer every 2 years and upgrade their software even more often. The new features (ALL of them) are not needed in the default install. They could be tested using extensions but there is absolutely no reason any more to change ANYTHING just for change's sake.
What we need is at least one browser-alternative that aims at creating a bug-free browser instead of a perpetual usability experiment.
It's the Web's power users who are pushing Chrome to new heights.
So.. "power users" now equates to "people who have the most free time on their hands"? Because I really don't see how surfing a bunch of web page makes one a "power user". If anything, I'd think people who have no idea what they're doing, or who are just killing time, are far more likely to visit more web pages.
#DeleteChrome
If there are holes in drivers they should be fixed
Good luck with that. Oh, and if you're using Linux with the current nVidia drivers, be careful where you navigate with WebGL enabled...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"It's the Web's power users who are pushing Chrome to new heights."
I think that depends on the definition of power users. Because judging by customization and advanced features, Firefox or Opera would be better choices for power users.
Most Chrome users I know are the exact opposite of power users, they like Chrome because it's simple, it "just opens pages".
Nothing wrong with that if it works for you. But the point of tweaking and customizing a browser is not to make life more complicated, but to eventually save time when browsing by doing something faster. For example, a regular user will first open a new tab and then navigate to Youtube.com to search for a video of 'something', while a power user will highlight the word 'something' and "search with Youtube" from the context menu, saving quite some time in the process.
I know Chrome probably has that functionality as well, and don't get me wrong it's a good browser in many aspects. But the point is that the average (!) Chrome user doesn't use those features. I'd say the average Chrome user is barely any more of a power user than the average IE user.
So I wouldn't say Chrome adaptation is being pushed by power users, but much more by power marketing.
I wouldn't ever take behaviour on Slashdot as an indication of anything for a browser, Slashdots Javascript is just shit, its layout is just shit, and in general its just shit - there are so many shitty bugs in the code that have been complained about for ages and yet the team constantly roll out new candy rather than fix fairly major bugs.
My two pet ones are the "load another comment further up the chain when you click in the comment box, and remove the focus from the comment box. Yeah, that means the next click will load another comment..." and the random lack of karma scores on comments.
And yet they recently changed the page layout slightly, which fixed none of the bugs commonly reported. Eye candy over functionality.
Utterly pathetic. The only reason I come here any more is for the entertainment from the discussion, which actually I haven't found elsewhere. But as an example of a front end, Slashdot is just shit.
I don't know all the extensions you list, but for those that I used on Firefox, there are replacements on Chrome:
Adblock Plus: Use the Adblock extension. It is very good now; don't see any difference to the FF ABP anymore. (In the beginning, it would only hide elements, now it doesn't download them)
All-in-one Gestures: Use the SmoothGestures extension. It does everything I need.
Better Privacy: I think not needed anymore on Chrome - LSOs ("Flash Cookies") now get deleted when you delete other cookies from the menu now. This is quite new though and I think can't be automated. Not sure there is an extension for this.
Gmail Watcher: Google Mail-Checker works for me.
Firefox Sync: Chrome Sync is built into the browser. For cross-platform synching, use Xmarks
HTTPS everywhere: Called "Use HTTPS" on Chrome
I am sure there are weather extensions as well. Bugmenot also seems to exist for Chrome. So does Stylish. Etc.
Wikimedia browser share gives Chrome at 15.6%.
(This is just one site, of course. But (a) Wikimedia has no interest in pushing the numbers (analysts' business model is selling out) (b) it's a top-10 general interest site used by normal people, not just geeks (c) this is worldwide.)
http://rocknerd.co.uk
The Classic Discussion System works fine, though.
Dilbert RSS feed
I think the median of several browser stat websites, as calculated by the Wikipedia entry for browser usage share makes much more sense, than taking one particular site's data - besides, StatCounter has always been biased in favor of Chrome. Not any political kind of bias, mind you, just the way they collect their stats seems to favor Chrome.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Simplified: Browsers A, B, C are introduced in order to billions of users. Browser A starts with 100% of Market, using Marketing tools like bundling, until Browser B is introduced. Browser B does not have marketing dollars but over time achieves 30% share, Browser A falls to 70%. Browser C is introduced, using Marketing tools similar to Browser A, and in shorter period of time takes 20% share, mostly from Browser A. A now = 50%, B = 30%, and C = 20%.
65% of Slashdot comments are then griping about Browser C using Marketing tools of Browser A.
The real challenge is to think of something interesting to say on this topic. It's like commenting on which of your neighbors schoolkids is the smartest looking. Oh and sorry Netscape, you were the first A, but I wasn't talking about you.
Gently reply
You have of course reported any known bugs to nvidia.
I haven't, no, but the person who discovered the hole did, about a year ago. Still waiting for the fix.
Unfortunately, both the silicon and the drivers were designed to run trusted code very fast. Being able to run untrusted code safely is an entirely different design requirement. The latest hardware is designed to be able to run semi-trusted code fast (although the drivers aren't really), but the older hardware isn't.
Addressing security holes by ensuring those who need to know about problems can fix them helps.
That only works if they have an incentive to fix them. 99% of nVidia customers don't care if shader code can compromise their system, because they trust all of the shader code that they run. They do care if they see a performance hit. If you produce a new driver that gives people a 10% drop in framerate, how many are going to thank you?
You'll notice that the responses to Microsoft's comments were all from browser developers, not from driver developers. People who work with the drivers know that they shouldn't be allowed near untrusted code. A typical driver for a modern GPU is a huge chunk of code that was developed with only one design constraint in mind: speed. The fact that the recent hardware is a bit safer is due to this same requirement: customers don't want the overhead of switching to kernel mode to talk to the GPU, so the newer chips just do some basic setup in the kernel and are designed to have all of the commands sent via a ring buffer mapped into the userspace process. Because the userspace process has more or less direct access to the hardware, the hardware now needs to provide proper isolation for unrelated processes. This makes it a bit more likely that it's safe. Of course, this doesn't prevent the WebGL code from being able to compromise the browser, it just prevents it from being able to compromise the system without compromising the browser first.
WebGL is nice in theory, but it's inserting untrusted code into a software stack that was never designed to be secure, and that's a problem.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I find it sad that an audience who ran away from MS a decade ago is willing to embrace something so easily from an arguably much more sinister source. Personally I have stopped using Google for searches (DuckDuckGo) and never embraced GMail except as a throwaway account.