Google Chrome Becomes World's No. 1 Browser

redletterdave writes "Just six months after Google Chrome eclipsed Mozilla's Firefox to become the world's second most popular Web browser, Chrome finally surpassed Microsoft's Internet Explorer on Sunday to become the most-used Web browser in the world, according to Statcounter. Since May 2011, Internet Explorer's global market share has been steadily decreasing from 43.9 percent to 31.4 percent of all worldwide users. In that time, Chrome has climbed from below 20 percent to nearly 32 percent of the market share. Yet, while Chrome is now the No. 1 browser in the world, it still lags behind Internet Explorer here in the U.S., but that will soon change. Chrome currently has 27.1 percent of the U.S. market share, compared to Internet Explorer's 30.9 percent, but IE is seeing significant drop-offs in usage while Chrome continues to rise."

Comments

Chromium,

[pecosdave]

Like Chrome without the invasive EULA.

Re:Chromium,

[Mashiki]

Doesn't Chromium actually require building? I have no idea where to find a compiled exe.

It doesn't require building, but after nearly an hour of searching their website I still couldn't find a direct link to this: http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium

Which has a prebuilt version.

Re:False

[Kjella]

Statcounter just tracks requests. Google Chrome started using pre-loading pages, which artificially inflates page views. Move along.

Actually they've changed that:

Prerendering adjustment

Further to a significant number of user requests, we are now adjusting our browser stats to remove the effect of prerendering in Google Chrome. From May 1 2012, prerendered pages (that are not actually viewed) are not included in our stats. More information on this is available in our FAQ.

Well deserved

[Compaqt]

Sorry, but it's not just because of marketing.

The fact is Chrome's a good browser, it moved the state of the web forward, and Chrome's win is well deserved.

In hindsight, Chrome's dropping of the menu was brilliant. I actually don't use 99% of the time.

Secondly, it's fast. It loads pages fast. It loads fast from a cold start. It loads a new tab fast. It loads a new window fast with Ctrl+n. Firefox is sluggish by comparison.

Thirdly, it doesn't have a propensity to crash. I don't bother quitting it if I want to restart it. I just kill it with xkill. I know that there won't be a problem (data corruption or whatever) when it starts up again. If there's some other problem (laptop battery down), it opens the tabs I had open if I tell it to.

By contrast, it's a joke how every time Firefox opens it has the "Well, this is embarrassing" tab ("We couldn't open the tabs you had open last time due to some error, etc.").

Fourth, there's the "senior moments". It's when the Firefox window goes gray in Ubuntu. Seems it happens randomly. Even little kids have picked up on that ("the internet's not working!"). No, Firefox is not working. Doesn't happen in Chrome/Chromium.

As for tracking, use Chromium and turn query completion off.

Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users

[Baloroth]

The article sez: Google was spamming its own results, but stopped when people called them on it.

No it doesn't. To quote:

Google's statement, according to SearchEngineLand, is:

"We've investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site's PageRank for a period of at least 60 days.We strive to enforce Google's webmaster guidelines consistently in order to provide better search results for users.

While Google did not authorize this campaign, and we can find no remaining violations of our webmaster guidelines, we believe Google should be held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we would against a typical site."

The demotion is a response to a campaign in which bloggers were found posting low-quality content related to Google Chrome in an effort to promote a Google video about King Arthur Flour. At least one of the posts had a hyperlink to the Chrome download page, which can help a site rise in Google search results through Google's PageRank algorithm. But paying people to include such links violates Google's guidelines.

"So far, only one page in the sponsored post campaign has been spotted with a 'straight' link that passed credit to the Chrome page," Sullivan writes. "It's also unlikely that the campaign overall was designed to build links. But my impression is that Google's deciding to penalize itself anyway with a PR reduction, to be safe."