It sounds like a ludicrous notion, but one of the most high-profile journalists in technology believes that Google’s Chrome web browser has a shot at overtaking Microsoft’s Internet Explorer in the next five years. PC Magazine’s Lance Ulanoff recently wrote:
Google Chrome’s market share numbers are skyrocketing, blowing past Safari and Opera to become the number three most-widely-used Web browser. That’s pretty impressive, and I don’t think it’s going to stop there. I fully expect it to overtake Firefox and challenge, if not beat, Microsoft Internet Explorer sometime in the next 5 years.
While I think there’s a great chance that Chrome will overtake (the alarmingly stagnating) Mozilla Firefox, I have a hard time believing that it can beat IE. Microsoft has a huge advantage in being the default web browser for the most popular operating system in the world. While Google has been making and will continue to make deals with PC vendors to make Chrome the default browser, but those are just drops in the bucket compared to IE. Of course things could change drastically as web browsing moves away from the PC and to mobile devices.
On my laptop, I use Chrome as my main browser and Firefox as my secondary. I rarely use IE. Just for the hell of it, here are the browser stats for RPad.tv visitors.
- Firefox 41.83%
- Safari 21.44%
- Internet Explorer 20.52%
- Chrome 11.93%
- Opera 1.31%
What browser or browsers do you use every day?
Who uses Opera?
We won't make fun of you, we swear.
I'm in the Firefox percentile and occasionally Safari (when on the iPhone) and Chrome (because this is the homepage). I rarely use Chrome because I lose my RSS feeds with it.
@N8R I use Opera on my BlackBerry. Btw, Chrome has a new RSS plug-in. I'm not sure if it's any good.
@ R Pad
Mac version too? I'll check for it.
@ R Pad
Yeah… they're on the homepage thing and kind of awkward.
I have to sign up for all of them again too.
Now my only issue with Chrome is lack of Divx support.
I am stuck on IE at work. At home it's a combo of chrome and firefox. A lot can change in 5 years. We might be using MS Fonzi to surf the web by then…
I use Firefox mostly….if for no other reason than the built in spell checker. God knows I need that sometimes. Sometimes I use Internet Explorer as well, but I prefer not to.
mostly safari for me, but I don't care as much for the windows version at work. I've started to migrate to Chrome at work. for work related sites I usually use IE
Work is hopeless. IE6 is all they give us, but at home it is Firefox only.
@Sandrock323 Do they give you two sticks to rub together if the office gets cold?
@ Sandrock
Do you have to bend the staples your self too?
chuck norris talks about fight club
Safari. After the upgrade to Snow Leopard, I've had only 1 or 2 problems with it (since the Flash plug-in will crash disparately of the browser). I have Firefox installed as a secondary, but there is only one site I really ever use it for, since the plug-in isn't compatible with Safari. Though in the interest of full disclosure, I have yet to try Chrome—based on the features that I read about, it didn't seem like anything special enough to warrant a look.
I pray for the day IE is no more—then I won't be called to fix the communal office PC, and I can actually get some work done (full disclosure again: on my MacBook Pro, of course).
@ Ray:
Forgot to say: "(the alarmingly stagnating) Mozilla Firefox"—I couldn't agree more.
I use firefox the most, with chrome as a close second. Firefox has the options I like, whereas chrome I am not as familiar with the preferences and options, which I like having. With the toolbar being a little different it throws me off simply because it feels more stripped down. It is a good browser though.
One thing I am curious about, and lookatthisguy made me think of it…why does safari and other apple products (iPhone, itouch, ipad) have such a problem with flash?? Computers at school that I use in the labs that are iMacs and have safari on them crash all the time on simple sites, while the same computers run those sites just fine in firefox. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I just don't like this pattern of apple produtcts not supporting flash. Is there. Secret hate between Steve Jobs and the makers of flash, that no one else knows about??? Haha
@ bsukenyan:
The only thing I know for sure is that Flash is notorious for hogging system resources. When I had Leopard, Safari crashed constantly for me. Now, it's just the Flash plug-in that crashes, and comes right back with a page refresh, which is excellent for me considering the way I use the web.
I did find a couple sites that explore the situation though: In this first one, the author appears to be pro-Apple (though he may just be anti-Adobe/Flash), but offers a fairly balanced writeup on the situation. http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_fla…
The page I found more interesting, however, is on Adobe's own blog, discussing the (somewhat controversial) "blue lego icon" on the NYT homepage when Jobs demoed the iPad. Interestingly enough, while the author tried playing the victim card, most of the comments I read were happy to see the end of Flash's reign on the web, including some Flash developers.
http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplatform/2010/01/appl…
Another example, it seems that Team Apple cites buggy performance, resource hogging, and bloated architecture; Team Adobe claims it can't make improvements because Apple denies access to needed codes, Team Apple counters with their outlook on what system resources should be kept distant from third-party programs for the good of the system overall…
In the end, it's become a highly politicized, polarized, and ultimately, convoluted debate, which some go so far as to call it a "mexican standoff."
If I'm wrong about any of this though, I hope someone will speak up.
@lookatthisguy Chrome is most definitely worth a look. My favorite feature is that every tab is an independent process, so if one crashes, the rest of your browsing session is safe. The javascript performance is also outstanding.
I really like Firefox too, but as it has gotten bigger, progress has slowed.
@Ray. I do like that about chrome, that each tab is a separate session.
@lookatthisguy. I've heard that before. That flash is very buggy, and that's why safari always messes up. But I had never heard about the Mexican standoff between apple and adobe on that issue. In my opinion I think apple should be the one to end that problem and allow adobe to fix some of the problems that flash has with safari.
@ Ray: Really? I'll check it out then, though to be honest, with all the features Google sells, they kinda give me a creepy Big Brother vibe sometimes.
@ bsukenyan: I can't speak to that, as I don't know how deep into the system the H.264 coding is (that was one of Adobe's primary arguments), but I'd personally prefer a stabler system over entertainment issues, if it really is that serious of a cut into the system. Regardless, I don't expect Apple to budge, as they tend to be fiercely picky, not to mention HTML5 and one other open-source code (I forget the name) seems to be taking ground.
I use nothing but Chrome now.
Firefox is just unnecessarily over-cluttered and slow when compared to Chrome. It was the best before Google came along and did what Google does best(conquer everything), and really, that's something.
@Ieyke To be fair, Firefox has gotten faster with version 3.6, but still not Chrome fast.