Google Chrome Takes The Top Spot

September 8th, 2008 was a big day. This was the day that Google Chrome was released. Who would have thought that it would only take 3 1/2 years to go from initial release to the most popular browser in the world? That’s right, Chrome is the number one browser in worldwide (number two in the US) with a market share of 32.66% to IE’s 31.75%. It looks like Google has done it again but they shouldn’t relax just yet. This isn’t the first time Chrome has been number one. On March 21st 2012, Chrome jumped into first place for a day. So what’s so significant if its claimed the title before? This time its held the spot. Remember the EU anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft for not offering users the ability to choose their Internet browser? That was only resolved in December 2009 and that was the just the legal side, the technical implementation of the browser ballot box (that allowed users to select their browser from a list of twelve popular browsers) still took months to follow.

By The Numbers

The numbers don’t deny it did make a huge impact on browser choice. But why are people choosing Chrome? I think there are a lot of reasons. Speed, simplicity, security are all there and the browser detection on google.com offering non-chrome users the option to upgrade to Chrome didn’t hurt either. But it’s not like end-users randomly download anything and everything they seem to be presented, right? I wonder if Google can be found to be anti-competitive by leveraging the dominance in the search market. Perhaps it’s an oversimplification of the EU anti-trust but it was Microsoft who was leveraging their dominance in one market to compete in another. Maybe we’ll see the day google.com offers users to “upgrade” to IE, Opera and Safari.

Conclusion

So what does all this mean? IE had a huge market lead and end users were comfortable with the IE interface after years of constant exposure but these advantages eroded in less than 48 months. The dominance of Chrome worldwide will give Google more clout when it comes to web standards such as HTML5 and CSS3 or the success of SPDY. This will also be a factor in the success (or failure) of Chrome’s Web Store, Google’s attempt to redefine what a browser is. But more importantly, it shows the willingness of Web users to look at new browser options. Perhaps there is a chance for David to beat Goliath on the Net. What has been really interesting is that Firefox’s market share has been by and large unaffected by Chrome’s gains. Mozilla’s continual dedication to web standards and popular plug-in modularity have led to a fiercely loyal fan base. So Mozilla … with a strong and active user and development community and constant innovation there is still hope, keep pushing.

Related Post Links:

Google Chrome and the Browser Wars!

By The Numbers

Conclusion

Subscribe to receive Carbon60 news