Comments on: How widely used is Chrome? More than I expected

In two months, Google's Chrome rose from nothing to 3.6 percent of browsers used to view CNET News. It's less common in the mainstream though.

[loose_screw]

Chrome has been my default browser since about the second week of its release, and I'm trying to spread the gospel as much as I can. Count me in as a Chrome fan.

[nubsack]

ALL YOUR CONTENT ARE BELONG TO US!

"By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services."

--Chrome Terms of Use Agreement, Section 11.1

[loose_screw]

@nubsack: Who cares. Besides, Google changed their terms of use shortly after Chrome was released to remove that language (which was broadly copied from other products). You might want to "Google" that. ;-)

[Vegaman_Dan]

November26:

"@nubsack: Who cares. "

While Google removed the language from Chrome, they did not remove it from their other services on Google's online apps. This language means that if you use Google's office suite, they can claim use of anything you do there- which makes it very dangerous if you use it to look at company documents, email, etc. While it is unlikely that they actually will do anything, the very presence of the language itself is dangerous.

[opinionguy]

Very good points.

[opinionguy]

Another post. hmm.

[ejeon1989]

I'm not going to switch until a Mac OS X version is released.

[gafhptva]

The teaser from the front page was this: "Chrome browser is now mainstream?" ANYWAY you slice it. NO matter where you fall. The answer is an resounding and unqualified "No" or "Not yet at least". You can " yea, but" all you want. The answer is no. I think it a little patronizing the many ways we are having this crammed down our throats versus stating that it will possibly or probably be. I'm tired of being told what it WILL be. When it's ceven close to 'there'...fine and cool. But get off this'default' high horse. Fine if ya want to be ahead of the curve upon its real arrival, but it's not there or close yet. It can't do all or close to all I need it to do YET. So fine, we will be there but premature 'default' adoption is nothing more than a guise for discussion and 'buzz' and something to talk about and yea...even argue over but let's get back to the factual answer to the question posed. NO, not yet. If the attempt to just get people like me to respond constitutes all cnet wants then, great job but I think not. Any legitimate and arguable questions would be really welcomed. You guys are better and more practical than that. Don't turn 'tabloid-like' on us. We are a bit more savvy than that. Enough already in that context. Be the practical professionals that I thought you were.

[dafent]

google is now promoting Chrome on the YouTube home page...I think they are serious about this

[opinionguy]

They probably are

[Liquidx01]

I wonder how much that cost them... oh, nothing. D'uh.

No shocker there.

[nonkey1]

Mac and Linux versions would push Chrome further up the rankings...

[joetesta70]

A Mac version would be a wate of time. It would bump marketshare up to 3.7%

HA! LOL!

[mavink]

The Mac version is coming along nicely; if you want to have a look at the current state of things, you can find builds of the current code for MacOS at http://securityandthe.net/chrome/

[tpb261]

A Linux version!!??? Going by Google's history they dont give a damn to Linux users, so why should we? And even otherwise, Chrome has nothing great for Linux users - Firefox has better features, and I am not even speaking about Konqeror

[burny420]

Mac have a market share? HA thanks for the laugh.

[joetesta70]

3.6%.....that's like Appple's market share. LOL!

[gsmiller88]

Yeah we have a tough time navigating around the web with just that one button mouse and all.

[chris_baker2007]

LOL, true that.

[Penguinisto]

...but didja notice IE's share dropping like a rock?

Now THAT is funny. ;)

[Vegaman_Dan]

Penguinisto wrote:

"...but didja notice IE's share dropping like a rock? "

As is Firefox and Opera in that same graph. Your point is ... well, ridiculous and unfounded.

[Penguinisto]

Err, Dan? Get yer eyes checked... FF is actually growing in the graph, while Opera remained steady-to-slightly lower. ;)

[Vegaman_Dan]

Penguinisto wrote:

"Err, Dan? Get yer eyes checked... FF is actually growing in the graph, while Opera remained steady-to-slightly lower. ;) "

Well now, you are absolutely right. FF is growing and I made that mistake. I apologize for that error. Thanks for pointing that out.

[ranpha]

Don't want a browser that phones home to Google mothership every chance it gets? SRWare Iron is what you will want. It is simply Google Chrome with all those privacy-violating features removed. It is open-source too and now supports ad-blocking (you won't see this feature in Chrome).

http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php

[Cluffas]

SRWare Iron's name is too long..

[ranpha]

SRWare is the company who makes Iron (the name of the browser).

Google Chrome is longer than SRWare Iron.
If you remove the name of the companies behind each browsers, Chrome is still longer than Iron.

[BillPStudios]

I'm seeing similar stats on my web sites. I installed Chrome initially just to see what it was and now I'm surprised that I've been continuing to use it. You just can't beat the quick launch time.

I'm still using IE for some tasks but compared to Chrome running IE is like going back to load time of a CBM 1541 disk drive.

Bill

[jlopezcnet]

Apple's marketshare is much higher thanks to the iPhone. Don't forget Safari is the default browser for iPhone/iPod touch and they are considered a real web platforms :-)

Google's share will probably triple thanks to Android release and a mac/linux port.

Opera is remaining flat which probably shows that it's increased the number of places you can install Opera (symbian, windows mobile, mac, linux, RIM, windows, etc)

IMHO, What MS should do is port it's browser to the RIM device so that i can compete.

[forever4now]

I made a comment below about smartphones. It is not clear to me that the browser statistics include smartphones, but perhaps. It would be interesting to see smartphone browser statistics broken out separately. I suspect they would tell an entirely different story.

[the-anti-google-baloney]

Hi,

It seems that Chrome enjoys higher market shares initialy in more tech-oriented sites.
The anti-google-baloney has Chrome at 5.7%...
In my opinion, it is very unfair for Chrome to compare it with the likes of IE and Firefox. This is a comparison that should be made at least 2-3 years from now...

http://the-anti-google-baloney.blogspot.com/

[goodspeed8701]

What is chrome? Is it a phone? Please someone tell me what it is.

[Reaper815]

Chrome is another name for Google Chrome which is a web-browser that is doing VERY well to still be in the beta stage. I personally prefer it over IE but thats also cause i almost prefer anything over IE lol...I once used firefox but that started to slow down, hopefully they can keep this one loading as fast as it does now

[twolf2919]

Firefox 3.1beta with new Javascript engine turned on is faster than Chrome (also in beta). And, unlike Chrome, it supports all the plugins in the world (does Chrome support Java applets yet?)

[Ferdi-66]

Too desperate to sell it?

[aMUSICsite]

It must be bad news for Opera. Their market share has hardly grown in years and already Chrome is starting to knock them down a position. Safari has grown quicker than most people gave though when it was released, wold be interesting to know what percentage of that is Mac/PC.

IE will stay king until one of the alternative browsers makes a real push into business, a large number of the IE stats is from people using IE at work.

Chrome I guess is a long term push and will probably take a few years to get a decent percentage, but it's a good start.

[Blacksheep1982]

I'd use Chrome if I knew where the hell my favorites went after I leave the main page, how to add buttons to the menu like "home" and "print" and oh yeah, if it had browser apps like Firefox, which I not only use to make my life easier, but also use to make my job easier.

Chrome is fast, but right now it is little more than a novelty item to me, a hard to use one at that. And I don't consider myself technologically slow as I've been building my own computers for six years, running basic web sites and fixing people's computers as a side job for years.

[ClubbieTim]

This is skewed story...what a waste of time...

[ministersin]

I have been using Chrome as my default browser since it came out, but I am now looking for other options. Too many times have I had to open Explorer to use pages. I understand for pages that require it specifically (some forms, secure checkouts, etc.), but there have been MANY times when Google would say a page is unavailable, and just for interest I tried opening with IE and they pages worked.

Now I've noticed this happens several time a week. That's too often for a piece of software that seems to have no support/updates.

[Reaper815]

Don't forget its still in the beta stage, google will probably fix it up a lot before they release the final product

[artistjoh]

Sadly there are too many lazy web developers out there (which also includes some large financial institutions) who code for IE only and don't bother to test on other browsers. It is extremely lazy because I test all my sites and make adjustments accordingly and know it is easy to do. It is a fairly small job compared to making the site itself, and of course I design the site with the desire to make it easy for all web surfers to use my sites. It is plain old fashioned good business sense. Company's and individuals who don't care or demand that their visitors adapt to them are simply being arrogant.

Of course this would never be an issue if Microsoft simply followed standards. Their business practice seems to be to cause chaos for anyone who doesn't have their product rather than doing what their competitors do by trying to encourage sales via a better performing browser.

[AppleSuxLeo]

It needs more CHROME ! LOL

[sparrowhyperion]

I primarily use Firefox 3 due to it's speed and reliability. I also love some of the web apps and it's download manager is much better than IE. Occasionally I run into a site which I need to load up IE for, but I really think in 5 years you will see Firefox equalize it's user numbers with IE. I tried Opera, but as long as they are charging for it, I don't see much of a future for it. No one with even half a brain is going to pay for a browser when they can get better ones free. As for Chrome... I tried it. I felt like I had moved down from a Corvette to a Kia Rio. It can be fairly fast but doesn't really have much under the hood. No web apps, and not the greatest choice of a browser if you need support. I give it a year before Google pulls the plug.

[wahoospa]

Sparrowhyperion, when did you last try Opera? It has been a free browser for over 3 years now.

[tipoo_]

LMAO, are you kidding? Opera has been free for years now!

[toad77]

Please Google get a Mac version.

[07tr0wa07]

ei.. Firefox is still the best for me.. its fast,safe and most of all its amazing....

[Apolune]

Wow. Geeks are using Chrome at a rate higher than the general population. Is there any other totally expected, non-informative "news" to report?

Are statistics the tech reporter's answer to mainstream media's meaningless lists?

[Shankland]

Take the statistics with whatever grains of salt you wish. I offered them as a concrete data point about what our readers are doing.

[cmstratton]

I switched to Chrome as my default browser a couple weeks ago. I use a pretty old computer (about 4 years old) and Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer all ran extremely slow. Firefox and Safari crashed pretty often. Chrome is so light, it works perfectly for what I need it to do.