Chrome Beats Internet Explorer On Any Given Sunday

tsamsoniw writes "Over the past three weeks, Chrome has beaten out Internet Explorer as the No. 1 browser in the world — but only on Sundays. In fact, according to data from StatCounter, Chrome usage is higher on weekends than it is during the work week, whereas IE usage drops on Saturdays and Sundays. Evidently, end-users prefer Chrome at home, which might be helping the browser get a foothold at work." (So apparently it's not just a freak occurrence.)

Comments

Chrome vs IE

[Johnny Mister]

There's a simple reason for this. Google has been heavily pushing Chrome to end-users via advertisements, their search engine, YouTube, and by making deals with computer manufacturers and software authors (adware) by paying them to spread Chrome. On workplaces this tactic doesn't really work as individual workers are often unable to install adware and other malware on their computers as IT knows what they are doing and have restricted that. It is quite similar to why most spam is sent from home computers - users don't know how to secure and maintain their systems.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[The MAZZTer]

Not bad considering Microsoft pushes IE to end-users via it being pre-installed on their operating system...

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Bad Ad]

I dont think adware means what you think it means.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[ElmoGonzo]

Not to mention that there are STILL workplaces where the I.T. control freaks won't permit anything except Internet Exploder on their systems. One place I worked did a periodic scour and removed things like other browsers or email clients.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[tomhath]

It's obvious this is home versus work usage. What's interesting is the Firefox doesn't show the same peaks and valleys as Chrome, IE and Safari. Maybe it's already used more in corporate computers? That's certainly the case where I work.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[SJHillman]

I work at one of those places and I'm one of those IT control freaks. There's a good reason for it - we don't have the time or the people to troubleshoot five different browsers. Just because a user prefers Chrome over IE doesn't mean they know how to use it. Even the simple stuff, like displaying a PDF in a browser. I wasted a half hour trying to teach a user how to print a PDF from Chrome because the buttons were slightly different than they were in IE (which she was already familiar with). It'd be great to standardize on Chrome or Opera, but then there would be more retraining involved and IE has a lot of (admittedly artificial) advantages, such as vendor support, AD control, etc. Then there's the fact that even if we did standardize on Chrome, some people would want Firefox. If we did Firefox, some people would want Safari. So in the end, IE is by far the easiest, cheapest and least time consuming option whether or not it's your favorite browser.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[tibit]

I push Firefox ESR on all desktops at work, using lovely Ninite, but I've been having a debate with myself as to switching to Chrome. The latter has a built-in PDF viewer that seems to be more responsive on lower-end machines (P4, Atom) than Acrobat viewer.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Flammon]

Which makes Firefox's share quite impressive considering that it was acquired on merit.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Anonymous Coward]

IE may be "cheapest" until you realize that Chrome makes the computer seem so much faster that you can skip an upgrade cycle. IE is dog slow, so are Firefox and Safari.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[JoeRobe]

I found that interesting as well. Even safari has small bumps up on the weekend. I do know that Firefox has become a lot more accepted in work environments probably because it's been around so long that IT trusts it by now. I wonder if the fact that Chrome usage increases more on Sundays is because enough people are still working on Saturdays that IE wins.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[hackula]

The corporate IT world often does not allow users to install whatever they want. At an old company I worked for, we realized that one of our clients was still running ie6. ie6 lacked a lot of functionality required to run our latest products. When we asked them to upgrade, their IT department simply refused. We had to simply walk away from the contract.

This is outside the norm for sure, but clearly the 9-5 world can lag a bit behind what people are using at home.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Johnny Mister]

Have you tested IE9? It actually is a great standards compliant and fast browser. Completely different than before.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[ciderbrew]

Yet websites are made to run and expected to run on loads of browser version and types. It's not hard (it is) but it's doable even with a small team.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[ThatOtherGuy435]

Except you can't actually skip an upgrade cycle, because as the systems age, they start having more hardware failures, and requiring more maintenance from IT, and needed extended warranties, and require more re-format/re-imaging - something that can be really annoying to handle once you've grown past the number of machines you can keep track of in spreadsheets.

A business that 'bills' out it's employee at a couple hundred bucks an hour really only needs a couple hours of machine failure before the opportunity cost of replacing the machine is recouped.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[hackula]

You don't have to support every browser or email client. Tell your users that Outlook is the supported email client and ie is the supported browser. If they want something else, go for it, but they better know how to use it. If they run into a problem, you reserve the right to say "Here is how it works in X, would you like me to switch you back". I would be willing to bet that the people who go out of the way to install their favorite alternative, are unlikely to be the same people who "cant find the dang garn printin pdf buttin".

Re:Chrome vs IE

[crazyjj]

And some of us use Firefox, which doesn't push anything and has the best add-ons of any browser.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep acquired on merit and lost on bloat and bugs. I quit using firefox when pages with flash videos would lock it up for 5 seconds at a time but it was my favorite browser for a good 3 years. Now I much prefer chrome...granted wired.com's BS adds and delayed pop ups play havoc with chrome from time to time so nothing's perfect.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasted a half hour trying to teach a user how to print a PDF from Chrome because the buttons were slightly different than they were in IE

At which point you write up your findings create a procedure. Share with your brethren... Then put it in a document repository so when it changes (and it will) you can just grab the latest version and give the end user a copy. Best part is you can get your doc guys to help you with it.

OR you can continue to hand hold everyone and bitch that they dont know what they are doing. You let them bully you into hand holding and they will do it.

Your choice.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Ice Tiger]

I'm also one of those IT control freaks and we're changing from using IE as the company browser and going to Chrome, the biggest drivers for this are commercial and IE lets itself down by being single platform and also locked into the OS upgrade cycle.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Ice Tiger]

So you don't build web sites for your prospects and customers to look at?

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Anonymous Coward]

I maintain several internal websites for a parent company and it's 9 child companies, and somehow I seem to manage to test for at least IE7,IE8,IE9, Chrome, Safari, Firefox. I just consider that good practice for the industry that I am in, and as a web application developer. 99.9% of the fixes I have to do are for IE not the other browsers. Our company is pretty standardized on IE, but I still take pride in my code working in all browsers, it might take some upfront work, but every site I have kept that standard with has been easier to migrate forward. Example, back when IE6 was the standard that's what most in out company coded for, I coded mine for IE6, and Firefox, and as IE7 came out I started testing against that (even though the company wasn't looking to move to IE7) when the company changed to IE8 as the standard all the other web devs were scrambling and banging their heads on desks, and I have maybe 20 minutes worth of changes across many sites. some of the other IE6 sites still won't work properly. so in the end I saved myself time and headache, and saved the company money by not just coding for IE... I suggest all web devs do the same if they have any pride in their work.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Appolonius of Perge]

Firefox nightly has a very fast pdf reader built in, so if you wait long enough it will make it to the ESR.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[SJHillman]

Switching them back to IE is still a waste of time for an IT staff that's already overburdened. It's much easier just to now allow it anyway. We haven't actually restricted it technologically, so users that can support it themselves slip by under the radar and we don't say anything if we notice it. However, anyone that calls for support for any non-approved software has it removed and is warned not to reinstall it.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[SJHillman]

If management wants to up my salary to account for an extra 10 hours a week fielding calls about non-supported software, then by all means let them install it. But until then, I'm controlling the environment so I only have to work 9 hours most days. Face it, 95% of end users fuck up installing and supporting their own software, which costs the company and the employees a lot of lost time. Next time I have to reinstall Windows because a user decided to install software that happened to have a rootkit or two, I'll bill you for the time.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[SJHillman]

If I had the extra time to write up my findings and create an unneeded procedure then I would.
If we had doc guys, then they would.
Unfortunately, there's these things called budgets that require us to try to get the most done in the least time with the fewest people.

Unless you're willing to pay for it?

Re:Chrome vs IE

[pz]

I'm a perfect example of this supposition. I work in a highly standardized environment that services a large number of employees (well over 10,000) where although not all have their own computer, nearly all are computer users at some point during the day. My office group has elected not to use the standard-issue systems and software, and roll our own instead. The IT people are reasonably undertanding folk, especially when I tell them we're using Linux and willing to self-support on *all* issues, except those involving network connectivity (which we, like everyone else at our institution, pay for on a per-call basis).

Re:Chrome vs IE

[tibit]

Good to know. Thanks!

Re:Chrome vs IE

[jellomizer]

What people don't realize what is an easy no, risk solution for your home PC, is a complicated high risk solution for the enterprise, the bigger the organization, the tougher the job.

1. You have those non-IT supported apps that IT now has to support. Apps installed before IT had enough corporate strength to push down an edict. Each departments would have installed their own software with little if any consideration on if it will be scale or cross compatibility. Approved and purchased and installed without IT because IT would either say no to them to take too long. These apps get there... Then when an IT sponsored upgrade these apps show up, on the IT Radar as a roadblock that no one expect because it was installed behind IT backs. But now IT needs to figure out how to keep it running. They are already in a migration process they don't have the resources to start an other one to fix/upgrade/replace that legacy system that they didn't know about.

2. The old legacy system. Its old, it has a crummy interface, it costs a lot to support... However it does what it needs to do and has been tweeked for decades to do what it needs to do very well. Yes we can make fun of the developers who thought that Active X/Java Applet/Flash/Silverlight (All technologies we know now we should avoid like the plague) would be the next big thing so they added their GUI front ends with such tools, or make their Web Apps work with only IE, as that is the browser used by 95% of the population at the time, but that doesn't solve the problem that it is now there. We can't just toss it out the window and put in a new replacement over night, and it would cost millions to replace it not counting the problems that will reappear that has been fixed with decades of tweaks.

3. IE is pretty crappy as a browser. However it comes with a lot of features that make administrators happy. You can have different policies based on Intranet Sites and Internet Sites, allow some features to user and not. It allows a degree of control on what they can and cannot do. And that can happen remotely as part of the policy admin.

4. Other browsers compatibility issues. How often when something doesn't work they will call help desk. Help desk will try their best only to realize that they are using an unapproved browser. If the company was uniformed then they should be more likely be able to reproduce the problem.

For your home PC there isn't much risk. If you are IT for thousands of people you have a diverse set and most people know different pieces of the puzzle but often not the full thing. So by adding more complexity it doesn't help anyone.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[DrgnDancer]

"You can install what you want, but we only support IE".

Problem solved. That's how we do it. Users get approval for all kinds of crazy stuff, on the understanding that IT doesn't support it; and if anything breaks, weird stuff gets uninstalled/turned off for troubleshooting. I'm the Unix/Linux support guy so it's not really anything I worry about, but it seems to work fine for our desktop support guys. Hell, my "Corporate workstation" is a Mac with Parallels running Windows in a VM. The Mac is not a supported platform, and is basically a standalone device. My Windows VM is a member of the Domain, and I use it for all my Outlook/Office Messenger/IE needs. Obviously this is not a "supported" configuration, and I'm on my own for support, but Desktop support joined it to the domain for me and provides basic account support. I find having a Unix based machine makes my job a lot easier (Cygwin works, but always feels clunky to me), so this was the compromise I made with IT. They knew I could handle all of my own support needs, so no one cares.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[softwareGuy1024]

That's what Firefox Portable is for.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Kjella]

Personally, I wouldn't want the IT department to waste their time on it either. If you permit other browsers, my support routine would be:

1. Start over from scratch using "Internet Explorer", the one with the blue "e" icon.
2. Try whatever you were doing again.
3. If it works, keep doing it from IE. If it doesn't, only then contact us for help.

We have intranet systems that only work in IE, when I run into them I switch to IE. IE is the only supported browser. If it works in IE, then per definition there is no problem. Now I hope someone in intranet acquisitions or development has requirements for new development, but until further notice that is how it is. Doesn't stop me from browsing the web in Chrome or Firefox though, just don't expect any support on it.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[jellomizer]

Firefox does have a stronger corporate support. Mostly because it is usually the default browser for Linux Systems (Software developers and Systems Admins often have Linux workstations) and the users will use similar stuff at home. Also Firefox was one of early popular replacements for IE when IE6 started to get much too old. So a lot of grandma's and companies when plagued with IE6 problems went to Firefox.

Chrome is a new player in the game. It takes companies a long time to change.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[SJHillman]

That's the policy we had at my last job. When it comes to non-technical users, that's a great recipe for spending your time removing malware and reinstalling Windows.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[steveb3210]

IE6/8 -> IE8 is a headache because in IE8 they finally fixed the box model.... IE8, IE9, Firefox, Chrome, Safari all pretty much render everything the same with only a few differences....

I'm a software engineer for a medium sized internet site and I routinely ensure that the application works in and looks correct in all browser, and it doesn't take that much extra time if you know what you're doing in the first place....

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Alioth]

The problem with IE9 and IE10 - well, IE10 is not even released yet, and it's far far behind Firefox or Chrome in HTML5 support - which is becoming more important as time goes on.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[hercubus]

... I'm one of those IT control freaks. There's a good reason for it ...

No there isn't a good reason for it. You have good reasons for not supporting Chrome, but not a good reason for scouring it off.

The freaks in control of my work machine turned Java off in IE, pushed that little rule to -every- workstation. I have a deadline that requires me to connect to a work-mandated site that uses Java applets. See the disconnect there?

I suppose you might imagine that you are way too smart to allow your restrictions to hinder job performance or even make tasks impossible. You're not that smart. No one can keep on top of every detail. That's why allowing a little freedom can increase productivity, especially for the employees who are actually smart enough to print a PDF. Not all of us "users" are that stupid and your bias that we are all that stupid is just that, bias.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[gutnor]

Politically speaking, that does not work in most places. People will complain, Management will hear about the complain and you will have to waste time justifying that those complain were not justified. You will have at best waste meeting time that could be use to address your real issues. At worse, you will anger some PHB, or some other PHB will understand that the fact that you allow people to use another browser is not a feature but a sign of incompetence, ...

Really, if the company is a tiny bit dysfunctional and is not making money directly from IT, the safest solution is to simply prevent people to use stuff you don't fully support. Otherwise the opportunities for trouble are almost unlimited. That is the same thing with supporting smartphones and tablets, there is no way you can even think about letting the user get away with that without the CTO publicly asking for it.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[IdolizingStewie]

If you've grown past the number of machines that you can keep in a spreadsheet, why does replacement of a machine mean upgrading the operating system? Seems far easier to me to keep using the same image.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[DrgnDancer]

There's ways around that too. At Boeing we had an interesting setup. No one had admin access to their own computers, but we had a piece of software on that allowed installation of a wide and varied library of vetted software with sudo like privileges. You opened this tool, and it took you to a library of software: pretty much most of the popular web browsers, a large number of useful free (or Free) tools, and a few licensed tools that we had site licenses for. You clicked on the software you wanted to install, and a privileged installer process started up and installed it. it was pretty cool. You couldn't exactly stay bleeding edge up to date with it (not exactly a bad thing), but you could get a lot of useful tools and software without IT having to worry about infection vectors (obviously they vetted anything that went into the library).

Lots of software (like Firefox, maybe Chrome?) can be installed in a non-privileged mode anyway. It puts all the files in the user's directory and doesn't write anything to the registry. Hell Firefox has a portable mode that you can just install on a Thumb drive and run without even installing it.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[mcgrew]

Flamebait? Redmond has lots of mod points, it seems. However, I certainly wouldn't have modded you up and might have modded you "overrated" because you're missing it completely.

IE is king of the browsers in the enterprise workplace for many reasons (none of which have to do with quality or useability). I'd say this story is from the "well DUH" dept. Nearly everybody uses IE at work, relatively few do at home.

Most workplaces have policies specifially forbidding anyone but IT from installing anything on work PCs, and I agree with those policies, even though I'll be glad when I retire in 2 years and will no longer have to put up with Microsoft products.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[IdolizingStewie]

My company is the exact opposite. Firefox is not allowed (although I know quite a few folks with the portable version), but Chrome has just become available if requested. Apparently it's something to do with the automatic updates in Firefox vs being able to specifically push updates in Chrome - I don't know exactly since I'm not IT.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[VGPowerlord]

Well, FF is up to 11, Chrome, on the other hand, has been under development for far less time than FF and is up to 18 or something. So, I find it really bizarre that anyone would use FF version numbering scheme as a downside vis-a-vis Chrome.

Firefox gets in your face every time it updates, and only recently stopped constantly telling you that some of your plugins wouldn't work with the latest version.

Chrome doesn't have, and never has had, either of these problems.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[bbbaldie]

Horse crap. Buttons have moved? The real issue is douchebag asp.net programmers who code for IE. Anyone who codes web apps who ignores www standards should be drawn and quartered.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[SadButTrue]

Not to sound to harsh or anything but your users that can't figure how to print are allowed to install arbitrary software?

Also, if you are resource constrained then I assume you are still primarily on XP. Which caps your IE version at 8. Though an improvement on 7 and a huge leap from 6, still very long in the tooth compared to any modern browser including IE9.

If of course you have migrated to Vista or 7 then it sounds more like resource misallocation rather than limitations.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[tepples]

Tell your users that Outlook is the supported email client and ie is the supported browser.

How well will that go over with the design department, which uses iMacs? What's the supported virtual machine in which to run Windows in which to run IE?

Re:Chrome vs IE

[slyrat]

IE may be "cheapest" until you realize that Chrome makes the computer seem so much faster that you can skip an upgrade cycle. IE is dog slow, so are Firefox and Safari.

Well after a quick search online "dog slow" doesn't seem to be true. fastest browser tests According to that, which was done recently, IE9 is fastest on windows, with chrome/firefox tied. If you go by mac speeds then yes chrome wins out. At this point it is much more the UI experience and the particular plugins that get me to like one browser over another. So I stick with firefox.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Creepy]

It would be nice if we had a choice, but my company goes a step further - they make everything depend on ASP/.NET due to an HR "Windows Only" mandate, so you can't do a f**king thing without IE. Except we need to validate our consumer products on multiple browsers and multiple platforms, so I always need 4-5 browsers up, and it's really fun when I need to work on the Linux or mac boxes, which means actually sit on them in some cases because hardware accelerated graphics don't work over remote desktop and VNC was banned (VNC sends the raw data, remote desktop does not) due to a bug 6 years ago and never reinstated. Nearly all of these tools depend on a Windows/IE proprietary security model (smart card, and don't even get me started there - corporate requires it for every machine we log in on, but it requires a Windows host or IE browser for remote desktop), so no, there is no fallback.

Anyhow, just ranting. I actually like what I work on, just not the hoops I have to jump through to do my job because HR and management base their policy on one type of product and not all of the products (the demands of a hardware manufacturer are not the same as the demands of a software house).

Re:Chrome vs IE

[MisterMidi]

It's not really more work, it's just a matter of choosing between proprietary features and standards, and using abstraction layers which also tend to make things easier. It's more work if you develop for one browser, and then try to make it work on other browsers. But you could also just develop cross browser from the start.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[therealobsideus]

My company made the same move last year. As my primary office is in one of our many call center environments and our internal knowledge tools and integrated application portals were built for IE6, the opportunity cost doesn't add up to have vendors or our internal dev teams to recode these for Chrome. Add in the stringent requirements for handling customer data and IT-Security wants to be able to control how locked down the browser is to hedge against browser-based intrusions on the company network.

That's another thing - while there may be many small-medium size business (leaving out large enterprises) may want to switch to FireFox or Chrome... but the enterprise management tools are not at the same level as what Microsoft etc provides for IE (I will note that Google's MSI for ADM/ADMX policies isn't horrible, it isn't on the same level as IE and Chrome still auto-updates). We tried to put similar restrictions on FF 3.6 as we had for IE and it just didn't work in a way that was beneficial to the user and the company. And with Mozilla retiring their extended life version (and Chrome not having one) how are local IT teams/Windows management/IT Security supposed to ensure that the product will comply with internal IT/Business/Legal needs and requirements?

Personally, I would relate the lack of alternative browser adoption in the Enterprise to IT not allowing personal devices to be connected to the network. At least with my company the big fear is protecting customer information (ie preventing both civil and legal liabilty/GLB and S/O).

On the other hand, we currently do have limited deployment (probably around 200 machines on a network with over 30,000 Windows environments) of FireFox 3.6 and 10 and as I understand we're considering switching to Chrome for those deployments to be able to better manage deployment. Chrome would be the closest to offering the support necessary, especially with Chrome Frame for web applications that require IE...

Re:Chrome vs IE

[arth1]

One other app works in all browsers, however, it also generates a lot of help desk calls because it launches a Java app. In IE, a dialog prompts "Block unsafe content from appearing" and most users automatically hit "Yes" which causes the page to fail.

A couple of pieces of software I've seen randomized the order of buttons in important requesters precisely to make the users read before they click. Ignoring what warnings say is like ignoring the oil light on your car - a great mix between ignorance, stupidity and carelessness which costs individuals and society a lot of money and grief.

Of course, randomized buttons won't help if the users don't understand what they read, but then the question is whether they should be using the software at all.

Perhaps add a third button that says "Yes", and which shuts down their computer.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Billly Gates]

Keep in mind www.html5test.com test things not even in the proposed w3c spec. It just what some people in mass emailings would think would be cool and what the authors would like to see.

With that in mind IE 9 was made in 2010 where it rivals Firefox 3.6 and my Andriod 2.2 browser with a score of 141. Not too bad, but behind FF and Chrome of 2012.

IE 10 consumer preview scored 370 if I recall which places IE above FF and just below Chrome. Not too shaby considering it was a HUGE PIECE OF CRAP in versions 6 & 7. Microsoft is switching to a yearly release of IE to keep it up and is such the opposite of the days of IE 6. IE 10 will be automatically updated so no stale versions of IE exist outside of work.

CIOs are going to have to get used to updating the browser far more frequently and need to stop freezing their browser and requiring an app for a particular version every 7 years. That just is not going to work anymore in this new series of browser wars.

IE is up to speed as a good browser again and IE 10 will be quite competitive and is already in beta. Great news for webmasters indeed

Re:Chrome vs IE

[therealobsideus]

As in my post above, I work at a Fortune 200 company with over 30,000 employees and... perhaps our internal IT policies (at least, the ones I know of - there are IT policies that the IT-Security group that wrote them doesn't even know exists) would not only prevent this but once our IT teams learned of something like that the entire operation would be shut down. We had a development team that built an amazing internal application to measure service performance management that interfaced on the back end to all of our internal systems - but, the team that built it did not go through the approval necessaries and without realizing it they opened up a number of internal security risks and the entire project was shut down once IT-Security learned of it and has not been used since. Rather unfortunate, as I am not a fan of Merced which we use in it's place.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Billly Gates]

Sounds like the bean counters at your employer had a ball and went overboard.

Hire more people and buy some stickers and scannable asset tags for each monitor and desktop. If you have thousands over many locations now without them, then do it next upgrade cycle. You can scan them into Excel fairly unexpensively too and you just type in the name.

Hire some temps/consultants to help next cycle. You can get a few people for a month or two to do it. If your employer makes hundreds of millions the lose of productivity from a virus or people not getting their word done far outweighs the hassle and cost to migrate.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[tepples]

Lots of software (like Firefox, maybe Chrome?) can be installed in a non-privileged mode anyway.

Which doesn't help in even more secure setups that use AppLocker (formerly Software Restriction Policies) to disallow most user accounts from running any executable not whitelisted by the IT admin.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[dave420]

Or it looked familiar in the EU browser ballot page offered to EU Windows users...

Re:Chrome vs IE

[higuita]

where is your bug report with a test case?

in the past i also had several problems, specially with flash, but right now FF is better than chrome, except on startup speed and when you have only 1 to 4 tabs

Re:Chrome vs IE

[ThePhilips]

Firefox gets in your face every time it updates, and only recently stopped constantly telling you that some of your plugins wouldn't work with the latest version.

Chrome doesn't have, and never has had, either of these problems.

Well, yes, Chrome doesn't tell or ask anything - it just updates. And occasionally breaks stuff. Silently.

I have seen at least one update to new major version which broke several extensions. (One which I wanted precisely at the time to install. Top comment, few hours old, was: "do not install, Chrome would crash!")

I have seen at least one breakage in HTML rendering. (Some form elements + label tag were dysfunctional in some cases.)

Oh yes, the problems disappeared week or so later. But heck, that's me noticing it, who uses Chrome less than once a week and that only because it is very simple to create a shortcut for private browsing session. It basically replaced to me the Opera as second browser - the browser where I keep rarely visited websites in the otherwise empty bookmark bar.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[fast turtle]

Don't forget what ever the hell the FF Devs are smoking as I just upgraded to 11.02 and they decided that if you don't trust a root C/A then you can't add exceptions to accept any certs. This completely fucked my security policy as I don't trust any C/A and am willing to add exceptions for those few sites that I absolutely have to trust such as my bank, merchants I frequently use along with several websites that offer https connections like Google and my ISP. Because of this change, I'm forced to use IE as I can still access those websites that are now blocked by FF w/o the ability to add exceptions. (error - connection refused due to untrusted issuer cert) was the message FF gave me and refused to provide the exception button. God Damn Devs. Think they control My Computer. Fucking idiots get kicked out the damn door as I refuse to use their P.O.S. software. So Long and thanks for nothing Mozilla. You used to be great but you've gone down the damn toilet like any other brown turd

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Billly Gates]

Have you read about the latest java exploit? Slashdot was hosting it in a malware ad last weekend.

Java is bad and IT should have put the java in the intranet zone only in IE. That is a benefit of IE as well over other browsers for things of that nature

Re:Chrome vs IE

[qu33ksilver]

Talking about HTML 5 and web standards, I have been a web developer for quite some time now, and IE has been a real pain in the a**. If you take an example, IE doesn't even support the resizable property. Get a load of that ! I can go on about table-rows and drop downs. Moral of story Google chrome and Firefox rocks. Now that Chrome has come out on the front, probably I don't have to provide support for IE anymore.. Thank the heavens!

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Krneki]

And this is what I'd implement if I had the time. But I don't, so in the end most of the solutions are implemented when they reach the status "good enough".

Re:Chrome vs IE

[higuita]

ok, its somewhat valid (you should also simply say that you DONT support that browser and leave it to the user), but then why are you choosing a broken browser (IE) over better and safer ones (firefox and chrome)?

you have for some some MacOSX, so no IE in there... to standardize the browser you would choose again firefox or chrome, or safari

you are right now choosing for your users, people wanting other browser would be in the same place as now: "you cant" or "its not supported"
the support and AD features are a lie, how many times you asked support for IE? what are you setting up in IE on the AD? the automatic proxy configuration? both the firefox and chrome can read the proxy setting from windows and can import IE settings if need other things.

Nope, you are simply a lazy BOFH... let your users install the browser they want and only support the one you want... this way everyone get the best of the 2 worlds, you dont have trouble supporting what you dont want and the users that want can use different browsers.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[mcgrew]

If only that were possible. We had Novell's email client for over ten years, and then they decided to go MS-only. Christ but I HATE Outlook. PDFs sent as attachments often are delivered broken and have to be resent, emails to someone down the hall can take an hour to be delivered, you have stupid limits on mailbox size, you have to enter a password for Outlook even though you had to log into the network itself, and you have to log in to a damned web page to change that password.

Novell connected the email client on network login, I never had broken attachments, or limits on file sizes or number of files, emails got there RIGHT NOW, when you changed your network password it changed automatically in the email client. And from what I've read, you can't use any other client with an Exchange server.

IMO Outlook is a clusterfuck and a piece of shit. Going from Novell to Outlook was like going from a brand new Lexis to a twenty year old beater Yugo. God but I'll be glad when I can retire...

Re:Chrome vs IE

[higuita]

how is that different from the boss wanting to use firefox and you dont allow it?

if a management asks for a browser, if its important/powerful enough, you will install it, if not, you can say no...
if you allow user installed browsers, if the management is its important/powerful enough, you will support it, if not, you can say no...

see... no difference at all!!

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Billly Gates]

IE 9 is not perfect but wouldn't you agree its better than IE 8 and certainly IE 6?

IE 10 will probably rival it. Its javascript is the most conformant of any one according to tests with the lastest. It is not going away and it would be nice if corporations used a somewhat standard compliant browser. For the little amount of code I have made I found only one issue with IE 9 compared to a half a dozen things or quirks IE 8 had. Windows used to suck for developers too 20 years ago. Now it is actually good.

I am just hoping with standard compliant code that intranet and corporate web apps can move to different browsers. These corporations still have not learned from IE 6 and after bashing Firefox for the release cycle particularly *asked* for IE 8 only code. Sigh

Next year when the CEO gets his shiny Ipad the decision maker folks are going to have to answer why it wont work and why its not fancy and pretty in html 5 goodness. Ooops now you are stuck with IE 8 .... wait we paid how much last year to upgrade it?!

A standard compliant IE will not have this problem. Webmasters such as yourself wont have to support IE so much either

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Anonymous Coward]

I can attest to goddamn sluggishness, slowness and lock-ups on pages with dynamic content, though in my case it's linked to JS (might be so in GP's case as well, flash objects are often inserted via JS)

Here's a minimal testcase to see how great FF's JS implementation is:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <title>FF's JS implementation sucks balls.</title>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        while(1);
    </script>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

Tested with FF11 and was like this since ever. Freezes whole fucking browser. Any other browser just slows down a bit (or "a lot" for IE - still works, though, and asks permission to stop).

Browsing JS-heavy sites is a nightmare, especially with older machines - you can't even let it load in background, because whole browser hiccups while running JS.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[KingMotley]

Of course neither does Opera, iOS safari, or android. I wouldn't call not supporting resizable a terribly bad thing at this point.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Twinbee]

Why can't you just say "Use another browser if you wish, but then you get no help from me - your're on your own". Then everyone would be happy.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[cpu6502]

>>>I work at one of those places and I'm one of those IT control freaks.

Probably still using IE6 or 7 too. (Like my company's control freak.) I understand not having time to test firefox or chrome compatibility. I don't understand voluntarily choosing outdated IE6 or 7 with security holes in it.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[mcgrew]

I've been computing for 30 years and have seen very few hardware failures. My PC at work is over ten years old, and so is everyone else's here.

Printers and photocopiers, otoh...

Re:Chrome vs IE

[whosdat]

Because it works only in small companies and only in theory.

In reality, you'll still get calls to help with $users_favourite_browser and, when refused, calls from higher-ups telling you to drop whatever you doing and go help the user, just this one time, really, because we'll lose a sale like this and we're paying you to do this, don't we and ... And of course you can reject them and point to the policies, but by then you've lost time, gained stress and still may have to go and do it after their higher-ups talk to your higher-ups.

End result - you're supporting single browser on the paper, but in fact you're supporting a browser zoo. No, thanks.

This spoken from a brief experience with a firm that tried to adopt this policy few years ago. Didn't go well. Left them halfway in the process of consolidating the zoo back to "good old" IE 7.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[CAIMLAS]

AD/GPO control isn't an artificial advantage, it's (IMO) the only advantage IE has.

In contrast, imagine how much time you waste through malware infections directly caused by IE.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Indras]

Hell Firefox has a portable mode that you can just install on a Thumb drive and run without even installing it.

So does Chrome.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[hodet]

Anybody who gets this upset about a browser has got serious issues. Really man, breath.....

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Haedrian]

Beat me too it. I'm still using Firefox 4, but it's ridiculous I can't run it on a 1/3rd gig laptop without having to reboot firefox every hour (memory leak). .

So you're complaining that an old version has a bug which they fixed in the future?

Update.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[qu33ksilver]

A small correction, Safari supports it. I am not bothered about android because mobile is a whole new league, whether you would need to resize any text box in a hand held device is a different question altogether. And I just noticed, as I am typing this reply, this text box is resizable(I am in chrome of course). What if you have a very large reply and the scroll bar comes? Won't it be great if you can resize the text box and see your entire comment in a single place ? I think it would, as for others, everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Cheers.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Billly Gates]

Anybody who gets this upset about a browser has got serious issues. Really man, breath.....

Apparently you never had to write code for IE 6.

If you do not have serious issues before hand you will very quickly

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Billly Gates]

Good God man

Firefox 4 was so terrible I downgraded to 3.6 and started using alternative browsers. Try Firefox 11? I do not use it as my main browser anymore but I have to say it is fast on my 2.6ghz phenomII and loads and runs much quicker. It is an improvement.

If you have Windows 7 upgrade to IE 9?

IE 9 has the best and smoothest graphics due to hardware acceleration. Chrome seems to have the best javascript performance. I have news for you. Opera is no longer lightweight and test shows it uses as much if not more memory of other browsers.

IE 8 and earlier versions of Firefox are from the last era in web history. They are much slower and use more ram. I thought Seamonkey was discontinued in 2009?? Pretty much any modern browser is better than the last. I think everyone should run the browser of their choice as long as its new I do not care. There are too many exploits out there otherwise.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[qu33ksilver]

Couldn't agree more. IE 9 is definitely a lot better than IE8, especially with the CSS3 support. Talking about IE 10, I have given a sneek peak into it from the Windows 8 developer preview that they released. UI wise, its a whole new browser. They have completely reworked the exteriors. For the javascript, there has been a lot of hype and hoopla over the new Chakra engine but personally I feel that V8 is still faster than it.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Billly Gates]

When you run business reporting, keystroke monitoring, and various journaling and security software made for IE it quickly turns into a dog.

One place I have seen IE 7 take up to 3 minutes to load as it goes through the software and funnel through proxies that are badly misconfigured etc. This gives IE a bad impression.

When people look the other way and install Chrome it doesn't do these things and doesn't go through the same proxies and OMG ITS SOOO fast in comparison

Re:Chrome vs IE

[cellocgw]

I work at one of those places and I'm one of those IT control freaks. There's a good reason for it - we don't have the time or the people to troubleshoot five different browsers. Just because a user prefers Chrome over IE doesn't mean they know how to use it. Even the simple stuff, like displaying a PDF in a browser.

Lesson Number One for you IT people: Don't confuse
"support" with "allow." Granted 95% of your users are too damn stupid to learn how to open two tabs, let alone use ctrl-C ctrl-V, so tell them if they choose to use FF or Chrome it's their own funeral. For those of us who DO know how to use software, leave our choices the fuck alone.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[SrLnclt]

The one thing that keeps me on the FF/Chrome fence is my external RSS reader. I usually skim through by feeds, click on a few to a couple dozen stories, and then flip over to the browser, flip through the tabs and read them. In FF it works great with TabMix Plus - you can set the browser to open "diverted" windows - like links from RSS readers, emails, etc - in a background tab, so your RSS reader or mail client never looses focus to the web browser. Great when clicking a bunch of links for later reading.

This seems to be a known missing feature from Chrome, and haven't been able to find a plugin that bridges this gap either, except if you use google reader.

Besides this I find Chrome >> Firefox.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[ifiwereasculptor]

It's a funny issue. I have it on Firefox, but not on Iceweasel. Same version, 10.0.2. Mighty weird.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[cpu6502]

Firefox 4 gradually grows from 90 to 200 meg of RAM (forcing me to exit and restart). From what I've heard later versions like Firefox 10/LTS are even bigger memory hogs.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[SJHillman]

Nah, we're on IE8/9 here and rapidly phasing out the XP/IE8 clients, and we used to support Firefox, Chrome and Opera on the machines but we ran into too many compatibility issues and user issues so we're continuing to phase all of the PCs to only have IE when we upgrade them from XP to Win7. So it's really a case of "we tried it, it worked really badly." Maybe in a few years we'll try something other than IE again, but right now it's the best game in town for our purposes.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[drodal]

sorry, i used to be a FF fan. But chrome is much nice and faster and the real insult.......

http://browserquest.mozilla.org/

This "mozilla game" won't run on Firefox on my mac at work. but it does on chrome......

really......better?!?

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Spazntwich]

Interesting point. I don't even notice this for the most part, using noscript.

I've found the vast majority of javascript on any page is superfluous at best and useless/damaging at worst. Most pages work fine without it, and if not, I can usually get away with only allowing the TLD and maybe their CDN domain. This has helped keep my 2ghz dual-core pentium computer feeling plenty fast on the internet. Without adblock and noscript, the poor thing feels downright sluggish.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Shikaku]

http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable

Try it yourself and see if it is better or worse.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Darinbob]

Chrome also automatically installed itself on my computer when I upgraded my antivirus. I was simply amazed that an antivirus program had the audacity to install a third party application, make it the default browser, and then automatically launch it. And you thought useless browser bars were annoying when they installed themselves.

Is Google pushing this mafia style of marketing or was it done without their knowledge? I think Google knows because I've seen other complaints of the same thing happening via Google apps. Of all the rules that should never be broken, the first should be to never an app on a computer without the owner's permission.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[hkmwbz]

Actually, Google was a heavy promoter of Firefox before Chrome was launched. They would pay you for successful installations if you linked to a special Firefox installer on your web site.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Flammon]

Actually, it was the other way around. Firefox promoted Google by making it the default search engine and that's how they got paid. I never saw Google promote Firefox. Do you have any references to that?

Re:Chrome vs IE

[hkmwbz]

The other way around? Google started promoting Firefox because they were the default search engine in Firefox, and it was a way to combat IE. Then Firefox started growing thanks to, among other things, being aggressively pushed by Google.

For the $1 thing, I found this with a quick Google search. And from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[mcgrew]

Too late, MS lost me as a customer in 2002 when I bought and installed XP and half my programs would no longer work. I'm forced to use MS's inferior junk (yes, inferior, buggy and unintuitive) ate work and I'll really be glad when I retire in 2 years.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Flammon]

That's Google promoting Google Toolbar for Firefox. Google isn't promoting Firefox. Where have you seen an ad paid by Google promoting Firefox?

Re:Chrome vs IE

[KingMotley]

Safari on Windows and Macs support it, but not safari on iOS which is what I said.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Billly Gates]

I can tell you from experience it is lighter. Mozilla hired a memory guru starting around FF 8 to slowly improve its ram and VM allocation techniques. True it may not be as good as FF 2.0 but certainly better than 4.0 unless you have some strange add ons.

FF 4 has well over 30 exploits and it is a security hazard to still use it.

Or upgrade your computer. Ram is cheap with 2 gigs of ddr 3 costing like $29 or something silly. Webpages use more flash and AJAX than ever before not to mention your anti virus scanner probably has additional sandboxing and checking for each script. It takes a decent computer just to browse the web these days as more and more load is put on the device rather than the server.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Billly Gates]

All it takes is one employee to download or execute a trojan to have it spread on the network.

If they use FF or Chrome but auto update wont work because you are on a proxy (very likely in a big network) you open yourself to trojans.

Not to mention IE only apps, sharepoint using IE only extensions, and anti pornography and internet monitoring tools only working for IE are a major reason to ban all browsers, but IE. IE 9 is good and fine for the corporate market.

You can claim you wont support it but Bob the manager can't access a critical sharepoint thing for a file uploaded by the CEO in his FF and as a support guy you are on the hook. How is that fair?

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Billly Gates]

IE is secure now and is not version 6 anymore. It has sandboxing and other security features that Chrome and Safari has (Firefox still doesnt).

Now if the company still used IE 6 then yes they are stupid, cheap, or in trouble from the recession still and just trying to stay afloat and would agree with you.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[cpu6502]

>>>Or upgrade your computer. Ram is cheap with 2 gigs of ddr 3 costing like $29 or something silly.

The laptop is already maxed-out at 1/3rd gig.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[cpu6502]

>>>I thought Seamonkey was discontinued in 2009??

Hardly.
You're probably thinking of Netscape.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[FunkDup]

Which makes Firefox's share quite impressive considering that it was acquired on merit.

This is true, but perhaps it's more accurate to say 'Microsoft's lack of merit".

Re:Chrome vs IE

[Billly Gates]

Then its time to get a new computer. The web apps are constantly updating and even a phone has more power and ram.

For $499 you can get an ok netbook with 4 gigs of ram and accelerated graphics and WIndows 7 which is an improvement over XP.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[kev0153]

Take a look at the feedly extension for chrome. Great way to read RSS feeds.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[hkmwbz]

Did you even read the articles and look at the screenshots? They clearly say "Get Firefox with Google Toolbar." You would be distributing Firefox, and getting paid for it.

Re:Chrome vs IE

[higuita]

i cant discuss about your taste, but a test game is your proof on with browser is the best!?

i bet that the game doesnt run because you dont have the 3D hardware acceleration enable on your mac... chrome have workaround many opengl bugs, firefox choose to enable only 3D on know to be safe graphic drivers.

anyway, as long as a browser respect the standards, you can use what ever you want :)

Don't worry

[A Friendly Troll]

Asa Dotzler will design a Firefox for five billion users!

Re:Don't worry

[hkmwbz]

I thought Dotzler was doing QA?

Or

[Rik Sweeney]

Evidently, end-users prefer Chrome at home, which might be helping the browser get a foothold at work.

Or, my employer won't let me install any software on my work machine so I'm stuck with IE(6).

Re:Or

[fermion]

The thing is that no browser works with all applications, or satisfies all people, so one has to decision. In my experience, firefox has the long history of personal which means it is more or less universally supported and tends to work, but is considered slow and a memory hog. IE has an equal legacy in business, so does work in that environment. There are many legacy back ends that depend on IE as the front end, so if supporting one browser IE is good enough. Chrome works well but does not work everywhere. It is becoming good choice for personal browsing, or if Google is primary application provider. In any case, as long as businesses MS as a primary application provider, IE will be dominant.

Re:Or

[The Moof]

Or, my employer won't let me install any software on my work machine so I'm stuck with IE(6).

You mean that browser that MS itself rates as a critical security vulnerability and highly recommends upgrading (and even pushes a new version out as a critical update)? I fully understand the support for already in place legacy systems, but that browser had better not be on workstation with unfettered Internet access.

If you're browsing the web with that bad boy, your IT needs to take a good, hard look at its policies, or at least rethink their risk assessment.

I have this great little browser here:

[rullywowr]

I have this great little browser here, low internet superhighway miles. It was only driven to church by a little old lady on Sundays...

I'm forced to use it at work. :(

[ciderbrew]

They could do this with LotusNotes too. Lots of people use shite that's not fit for purpose at work.

Re:Chrome and Citrix

[Anonymous Coward]

If by "minor glitches" you mean "doesn't really work at all", then yes, there are some minor glitches using chrome with citrix. Also, fyi, upgrading citrix is not quite the same as upgrading chrome, it is a massive project with significant risk, and possible a very large cost depending on how up to date your maintenance contract is. And even the latest version of Citrix still doesn't work right with chrome.

One Reason - IE ActiveX Scripts

[na1led]

The only reason IE is so popular at work is because of Active X Scripts. Many of the work related websites require it, especially financial sites, and schools. Until other browsers can fully support ActiveX, IE will always dominate. Microsoft's way of monopolizing the browsers.

Re:One Reason - IE ActiveX Scripts

[SexyHamster]

The only reason IE is so popular at work is because of Active X Scripts.

That and the fact it's on all the windows workstations by default and easy to update and control through network policies. I work as outsourced IT for several companies and when you're short on time browser diversity is pretty low on your list of "TODO"s.

• It's already there
• It's going to get updates when the rest of the system gets updates
• It works with the web portals that require IE
• It works fairly well for most peoples' needs

Downloading third party software to build MSIs so I can deploy Firefox sounds great in theory and if I worked for one company and had downtime I might look further into it. We've deployed Chrome by MSI at a couple of places and a few users seem to prefer it. I'll be surprised if it takes off in a big way.

Personally I almost exclusively use Chromium these days except where the odd management software requires a FF plugin. I switched over when there was a large speed difference and I haven't had a compelling reason to switch back yet.

Re:One Reason - IE ActiveX Scripts

[steveb3210]

You're out of touch with reality - ActiveX is a dead technology and people will migrate away from it, not the other way around.

Re:One Reason - IE ActiveX Scripts

[Anonymous Coward]

Check Korea on the note of ActiveX... still a 'big hit' there.

Re:One Reason - IE ActiveX Scripts

[na1led]

I wish ActiveX was dead, but sadly it is not, at least not yet. There are too many sites and applications that use it, making it impossible to switch browsers for this reason.

Re:One Reason - IE ActiveX Scripts

[steveb3210]

I wish ActiveX was dead, but sadly it is not, at least not yet. There are too many sites and applications that use it, making it impossible to switch browsers for this reason.

Its not a matter of if, its a matter of when they rewrite those apps to run on modern web standards...

I seriously hope CIOs don't think that 5, 7 years from now - they can keep their entire company on IE6 just because of some ancient internal infrastructure...

IE 9 also spikes... slightly

[efudddd]

The Infoworld article is pretty funny, and confirms what many have long assumed. However, while I'm just as anxious as anyone else to see earlier iterations of IE get their deserved due, a wider breakout shows something else: http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-ww-daily-20120101-20120402

In linked three-month period by browser version, notice that IE9 also has the same corresponding spikes (albeit smaller) on weekends. Possibly that reflects no active choice on part of home users who just use the default install (while corporate continues to play catch-up). But it might also represent a segment that simply continues to prefer IE (the "web-compliant" kind).

Re:IE and the Work Place

[Murdoch5]

The tools don't work on any other browser because who ever is programming them isn't taking the time to make sure there cross browser compatible. Not to cut up your workplace but single browser use apps are a sign of poor programming and poor programmers.

Inflated Chrome stats because of page prerendering

[Giorgio Maone]

Does StatCounter take in account Chrome's page views inflation caused by its Instant Pages prerendering feature?

I'd be surprised, since even Google Analytics itself is affected...

Anyway, please be careful before announcing "Chrome usage surpassed this or that" :P

Why we require IE

[crazyjj]

My workplace requires IE for one specific (but very important) reason. Everyone here uses Powerpoint (way too much, IMHO, but that's another issue), and Powerpoint has a built-in tool for converting presentations to webpages (meaning they can be posted on our intranet with forms and other pages). But those webpages only look right in IE. Pretty sneaky on MS's part. The alternative would be trying to convert tens-of-thousands-of-slides worth of presentations into html by hand. So it's a lot easier to just force people to use IE rather than having to deal with either the conversion costs or 2,000 phone calls with conversations like this:

Caller: "These slides don't look right"

Tech: "What browser are you using?"

Caller: "I'm using the internet"

Tech: "What is the picture you click on to get to the internet look like?"

Caller: "I don't know, JUST FIX IT!!!"

Re:Why we require IE

[CAIMLAS]

Print the presentations as PDFs. They're much more compatible than the crap HTML output by your plugin, and can be saved and read anywhere.

Re:Why we require IE

[qu33ksilver]

Agree to that. The advantage of IE is that it can make kernel level calls which other browsers can't. So compatibility with other Microsoft products is a bonus that you get. Also, in your workplace if you use Office Communicator, you can see the status of people directly in IE, which cannot be done in other browsers.

Re:Why we require IE

[shutdown -p now]

But you can't animate flashing text and add fireworks and other stuff that's crucially important for the presentation to a PDF. ~

Have you considered Chrome is just 'better'?

[goldcd]

I know why I originally switched from FF/IE (work) - Chrome was noticeably faster. Not in some "I've checked the benchmarks" kind of way, in the "I've installed it and this is clearly faster and more pleasurable to use."
After the initial speed thing, it was the UI that's kept me. Dragging tabs to windows, pinning tabs, scrolling tabs, bookmark sync, add-on/app sync, background update etc etc. Also simply installing Chrome on a new machine, simply giving it my google login and the Chrome that appears on the new desktop immediately resembling the version on my home machine.
Reading through the above, it's probably the background update that was the killer bit. I genuinely have no idea what version of Chrome I'm currently running. I installed it years ago and it's just been there ever since. My entirely subjective opinion is that the features and improvements silently appear before I ever even realized I need them - so I remain 'happy' and 'content' (and would have to see some utterly novel, ground-breaking feature advertised on another browser to even bother to download it)
By auto-update I don't mean like thunderbird or itunes, where an attempt to launch it suddenly triggers update popups, delays and release notes. I mean I don't even know it's happened. If this approach could just be extended to OS, drivers as well as apps, I'd be happy as Larry.

Re:Have you considered Chrome is just 'better'?

[RivenAleem]

And we all know just how happy Larry Page is!

MS already resorting to TV commercials for IE!

[Unsichtbarer_Mensch]

I was taken aback yesterday to switch on my TV to a major German broadcaster (ProSieben) and stumble upon a commercial for 'Internet Explorer, the most fun and secure way to access the internet"...it seems that microsoft has realized that in certain markets (especially in Europe), it just cannot rely on IE being preinstalled... That's (one of the) commercials in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKweh7ZD86A

Simple...

[TheCarp]

I am not aware of a SINGLE application, used in business, that is "Chrome Only".

However, for years at previous jobs (where linux desktops where uncommon) I have struggled with needing to maintain a windows machine for NO OTHER PURPOSE than to run outlook for mail, and ie for a few apps that will not work with anything else.

They are all over the place. Of course, not everyone can choose, many are locked in at work, and those who are locked in tend to be locked in to IE, for the same reason... a few apps. Those who can choose, well.... even if they use firefox or chrome, probably can't fully ditch ie even if they wanted to.

Didn't I work with you?

[Kupfernigk]

The IT guy who never documented. Or filed anything. We thought it was about job preservation. The senior manager asked "Is he dyslexic?".

Spare PCs

[tepples]

Then keep a couple spare machines set to connect to the domain and the NAS in case of a machine failure. Why would you have to replace all of them at once?

Re:Inflated Chrome stats because of page prerender

[Giorgio Maone]

I doubt they measure number of pages when measuring market share here.

Wrong, that's exactly what they do: Why do you base your stats on page views rather than unique visitors?

And yes, they're aware of the prerendering Chrome stats inflation problem, even though they believe it doesn't significantly skew their stats, for some reason they're unable to explain themselves (sounds like "faith" or "we're too lazy to adjust our data even though we could").

Re:Inflated Chrome stats because of page prerender

[MarkVVV]

Does StatCounter take in account Chrome's page views inflation caused by its Instant Pages prerendering feature?

I'd be surprised, since even Google Analytics itself is affected...

Anyway, please be careful before announcing "Chrome usage surpassed this or that" :P

Even if the page is being prerendered, it still means Chrome is being used.

My company is forced to use IE

[fluffythedestroyer]

I blame the webdevs who sold us a service available on the Internet. We have to use IE because it needs or uses IE API. I tried various things like using firefox and chromes, ie tab but it really wont work. It really needs those pesky API's from IE. Once I can find an alternative about this service which is on the way right now I will remove (hide let say) IE on every PC's at my work.

Re:IE and the Work Place

[Lambeco]

That fact that major companies are guilty of single browser compatibility doesn't make it any less lazy or incompetent.

Evil Admin don't allow me to use $MY_BROSER

[Krneki]

Just smuggle a portable version of the browser and putty on your windows machine and you can do whatever you want.

Troll disclaimer

Yes, some PC are properly locked, but 90%* can be hacked.

*The number is pure speculation.

Spies like Linux

[bussdriver]

Spies like to use Linux because their security matters; they like you to use windows because that makes their job easier.

Re:Inflated Chrome stats because of page prerender

[Pieroxy]

Does StatCounter take in account Chrome's page views inflation caused by its Instant Pages prerendering feature?

Even if the page is being prerendered, it still means Chrome is being used.

Not much of a web guy huh? Not much of a statistician either eh?

Re:Inflated Chrome stats because of page prerender

[wile_e_wonka]

Answer is here:
http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#pre-rendering

Re:Inflated Chrome stats because of page prerender

[sexconker]

Does StatCounter take in account Chrome's page views inflation caused by its Instant Pages prerendering feature?

I'd be surprised, since even Google Analytics itself is affected...

Anyway, please be careful before announcing "Chrome usage surpassed this or that" :P

Yup. This is correct. The stats are by page views.
Google fetches everything under the sun when you start typing, and only shows it to you when you actually want it. It's a terribly wasteful practice when you're just thinking of the increased burden on ISPs and servers, but it's even more absurd when you consider the bandwidth caps most people live under.

All of the web traffic monitoring sites only monitor a the top X most popular sites that have analytics or some other shit tracking engine layered on top.

Chrome users, who are tracked out the ass and who prefetch the entire internet, will be over represented.
Firefox users who install things to actively block tracking and ads and mountains of content they don't want will be under represented.

Then you have to consider that most web traffic is generated by a small percent of the population. Grandma on IE9 isn't going to register on these reports, but every insufferable blogger will.

Monday - Friday

[SoVi3t]

Monday to Friday I am at the office, where we are cheap and lazy and only have IE installed on old XP machines. I *WOULD* be browsing on Chrome (like I do when at home), if it was an option. I am sure this is the case around the world.

Compulsory IE Usage

[assertation]

I'm sure this has been mentioned already, but IE usage in the work place is almost compulsory.

Network admins know IE, they think supporting other browsers will add to their work load so they don't support other browsers.

Additionally, many companies have, bought, make/maintain legacy webapps that were hardcoded to non-standard web tech in IE so to get work done people use IE at work.

Cue Loverboy

[ThatsNotPudding]

Google commercial to the strains of 'Everybody's Working for the Weekend'.

The reason for this is...

[chr1st1anSoldier]

The reason Chrome beats IE on the weekends is because many companies make their workforce use I.E. and other crappy M.S. tools.

Re:Holy Vs. Heathens

[c0lo]

Usually churchgoing people try to avoid Hell.

... in the afterlife. Meanwhile, they do tend to pave the way to hell with good intentions.