The honeymoon is over for Chrome

As new market-share data from Net Applications shows, Google's Chrome got off to a roaring start, and has been coming down to earth lately. In its first few days after release, Google Chrome went as high as 1.16 percent market share, but it started dropping after the euphoria of the announcement died down.

Google Chrome has now settled into a holding pattern around 0.7 percent browser market share.

Cause for alarm? Of course not. Google never intended Chrome to be a one-day-wonder, and I doubt the company is worried about Chrome's market share today. The battle will be won over years, and it will be fought at the developer level against Silverlight and Flash, rather than at the browser level with Firefox and Internet Explorer, and perhaps particularly within the enterprise.

As such, Google doesn't need to win you or me over to Chrome. Its focus is on Web application developers. Once it has those folks optimizing their applications for Chrome, you and I will follow because Chrome will deliver the best experience for working on the Web, rather than simply browsing it.

[softwaredesignengineer]

Face it. Chrome and FireFox clicks only with the geeky types. Not with average users.

[duane534]

I'm an office manager at a small financial management firm, and I just rolled out Chrome on all machines, displacing Firefox 3.1. I even have it on the Linux boxes as Chromium. We use so many web interfaces. It's a productivity thing.

[bugm3n0t]

LOL - I don't think that's very smart. An office manager? of what 6 employee's?

[The User]

Google wasn't successful in most of its endeavors outside of its core business model. Chrome seems to be no exception. Google's approach is a double-edged sword - stripped-down simplistic and bland-looking products help improving performance, but don't win over consumers. For Chrome, perhaps value oriented users who run Linux wouldn't mind Chrome's looks. For the others it is "so 1994" product. I liked its performance, I didn't like its looks, features and privacy issues. Performance alone is not enough to sway me - it doesn't really matter if the site is loaded in 0.1 second or 0.08 seconds. To me, Google's predatory privacy practices is a deal breaker.

[duane534]

You'd prefer Microsoft's business practices over Google's, then?

[The_Decider]

duane,

Do you truly believe that there are only two choices? Google or MS?

[alenas]

I think Chrome is great and it will definitely make Microsoft to improve IE even more.
But I do not use Chrome too much, because I save all my passwords with RoboForm. RoboForms is great - and it works with IE and Firefox and I do not need to memorize or use the same password for every website. So I guess at the moment Roboform is dictating my choice of the browser (which is IE 8 beta 2, and not Firefox).
If there would be Roboform support for Chrome - I might use Chrome more, though not sure if I would make it my primary browser...

[The_Decider]

The sign of a clueless web "developer": coding to a browser.

Chrome is a non-starter because like all Google apps it is substandard and is nothing more than spyware.

[Saasrocks]

Part of the fight may be fought at the developer level but I am going to jump on the bandwagon as soon as they release Chrome for Mac because I need a browser that is optimized for saas-apps that I am using now - and most of them happen to be made by Google: GMail and Google Docs. Reason enough for me and I would think many others to add Chrome to the standard set of programs.