Report: Google's Chrome Browser Now The Web's Most Used Browser

[engine]

Looking at the trend for browsers, it's sure on its way up. I've found that IE has been more often failing to display some sites correctly. In part i'm sure it's down to all the different versions of IE.

Report: Google's Chrome Browser Now The Web's Most Used Browser [thenextweb.com]

Google Chrome has been long expected to leapfrog Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) to take its position as the Web’s most used browser and, according to data from Statcounter, the momentous change of leadership happened last week.

Statcounter’s findings give Google a double win, after the analytics site found that its mobile browser — Android Robot — had leapfrogged Opera to become the most popular option for mobile-based Web surfers in March.

Measuring the Web is an imprecise science, very often based on scaling up small scale measurement surveys, but the gist of Statcounter’s data over the last year indicates that Chrome use is rising of Chrome at the expense of IE and Firefox, regardless of the exact precision of the data.

[anshul]

Never thought, it will be the #1. It is good but it can be better. Simplicity and purposefulness won.

[londrum]

those numbers are a little bit hard to believe. do you think they just comparing chrome to ONE version of IE? like IE8? it doesnt seem to say in the article.

im sure if you add all the different versions of IE together then they will come out top.

thats what my website stats show. and thats what my addthis stats show too -- IE has more than a 50% share.

[Dinkar]

I agree with londrum. I guess they are counting prefetch calls too.

[blaze]

Bizarre.

[bwnbwn]

I see Google is advetising the browser on TV now. 1st time I have ever seen a commercial from G. on a prime time show.

[scooterdude]

they've been advertising chrome on prime time tv in UK for months now, and now Microsoft has been forced to join in

[Edge]

Chrome Browser Now The Web's Most Used Browser"

Not according to my stats...

[Leosghost]

Statcounter’s findings give Google a double win, after the analytics site found that its mobile browser — Android Robot — had leapfrogged Opera to become the most popular option for mobile-based Web surfers in March.

Hardly surprising.. it is the default browser in all new Android phones..Opera is only an "option" if you take the trouble to download and install it ..it isn't like Google give you a choice of browsers in a fresh android phone..

[celgins]

I find it very hard to believe as well. None of my stats show Chrome outranking IE.

But I have seen a number of Google Chrome commercials here in the U.S. over the past few months.

[sem4u]

I can't see Chrome beating IE at the moment.

This is what I see for one site:

IE: 44%
Chrome: 30%
Firefox: 17%

[badbadmonkey]

Hardly surprising.. it is the default browser in all new Android phones

So?
Does anyone here really see Android even coming close to iOS Safari, with the possible exception of tech sites?! Especially if you don't discount tablets and the utter dominance of the iPad?

These claims are utterly strange and bizarre.

[Fotiman]

@londrum, those numbers are all versions of IE.
@Dinkar, no, they adjusted for the prefetch as of May 1.

Here's what I see on one site:
Chrome 36.12%
Firefox 22.00%
Internet Explorer 16.75%
Safari 15.93%

[robzilla]

Not quite there yet, but well on the way, on one (arts-related) site I checked:

Internet Explorer: 30.57%
Google Chrome: 28.07%
Mozilla Firefox: 18.59%
Apple Safari: 17.92%

Whether you like Chrome or not (I know I do), you can't deny it's changed the whole landscape. I still don't like IE, and we'll continue to mess about with buggy, non-compliant pre-9 versions, but they're improving rapidly. The dumbest thing, though, is that XP users are stuck with IE8.

[AndyA]

robzilla wrote:
The dumbest thing, though, is that XP users are stuck with IE8.

I think that was a huge mistake for Microsoft to make. It doesn't take much to realize why IE is dropping in popularity. IE is still #1 according to my stats, with Firefox next and Chrome third. IE use has been gradually dropping, and it started to drop about the time IE9 was released.

[netmeg]

Hrm. I'm having a hard time with these numbers as well. Year to date, my biggest traffic site shows:

IE - 40%
Safari - 20%
Android - 15%
Firefox - 11%
Chrome - 10%

These are generally not tech users (think moms) and a lot of mobile. Of course, I haven't had my peak season yet - ask me in August. But it's always been a heavy IE majority here (although granted, it's definitely less than it was)

Even if it is true, IE will probably make another jump when Windows 8 comes out.

(I'm all for the wane of IE, by the way, it's a PITA to design for. I have no problems with Chrome, Safari or FF, but IE gives me hives.)

[JAB Creations]

I report my site's browsers statistics at the begining of each month which are based on DOM object detection so my statistics are much more accurate...

Firefox 35.99%↓
Chrome 34.05%↓
MSIE 13.09%↓
Safari 7.58%↑
Opera 4.91%↑

Granted my site is mostly technical.

Chrome has only gained that much market share because people who aren't smart enough to click on CUSTOMIZE buttons for software installation have Chrome replace the default browser. Everyone bashed Apple for doing that with Safari though there's no outrage about Chrome doing it? Talk about hypocrisy!

WebKit is a good rendering engine though like any other it has it's share of obnoxious bugs. These days it's no long is your browser supports a feature though if it correctly supports a feature.

- John

[Kufu]

Numbers on my highest traffic site seem to be different what everyone else is experiencing:

Year to date...

Chrome: 27.94%
Firefox: 21.65%
IE: 13.14% (over 50% of this being IE 9)

[aleksl]

Holly cow...

Actually, after some research I CALL BS.

On a large "portal" site with lots international traffic:
Chrome: 26.57%
Firefox: 21.26%
IE: 20.19%

But here's the rub: 90% of that traffic comes from Google Chrome Portable Stable, i.e.:
18.0.1025.168
18.0.1025.162
19.0.1084.46
17.0.963.46
etc.
[portableapps.com...]
[sites.google.com...]


Since what it looks like there's no way to determine from the set of strange IP numbers what is actual Google chrome and what is robots, I SERIOUSLY doubt that Statcounter statement.

And here's the stats from the real converting customers:

On a mid-size eCommerce store (that does not advertise internationally, although we ship world-wide):
IE: 46.26%
Firefox: 21.01%
Safari: 14.09%
Chrome: 14.04%

[moTi]

I guess they are counting prefetch calls too.

yup. this is utter BS and filthy propaganda.

yes, i too am seeing loads of chrome browser entries in my logs. around 90% of which from "google web preview" - their scraping tool to frame your webpages in their serps, which is disguised as chrome browser. combine that with googlebot and you have easily half of your bandwidth used up by this company.

i suggest you check your logs for user agent "google web preview". for it could turn out, that a good part of your beloved unique visitors may actually never have visited your site. but instead only happened to mouseover the serp entry on google - which produces a logfile entry on your server most of the time whereby messing up your user stats.

it's the same dirty practice they are doing with g+. inflating their numbers, deceiving the audience. and media too dumb to dig that agenda.

google = evil

[jimh009]

It's funny how everyone has different stats. Just goes to show how important "demographics" are when it comes to browsers and operating systems used by website visitors. Meanwhile, my stats are literally opposite of what everyone else seems to have:

IE : 50%
Safari : 20%
Firefox : 16%
Chrome : 12%

What jumps out to me is the Safari use...a few years ago Safari was lucky to get to 5%. But with the iPad now such a driving force in web browsing, Safari has become the #2 browser for my primary site.

Even more interesting, the 1024x768 screen resolution is now again the top screen resolution used by my website visitors. Just two years ago, it was barely used at all.

[matrix_jan]

My major website stats starting form March 1:

Chrome- 30.29%
Internet Explorer - 27.11%
Firefox - 23.70%
Safari - 13.19%
Opera - 2.97%

But 2011 stats are different; Chrome was third most popular web browser.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Support browsers not owned by major search companies if you want to keep search honest.

[matrix_jan]

I use Chrome myself, and "reopen closed tab" feature alone is worth switching for from any other web browser.

[moTi]

209.85.224.86 - - [21/May/2012:22:45:05 +0200] "GET /bla/bla.htm HTTP/1.1" 200 396 "http://yourdomain.com/" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko; Google Web Preview) Chrome/12.0.742 Safari/535.1"

seriously, check out your logfiles. i predict you, your stats are bogus. at least for me, chrome is google web preview most of the time. simulating a human visitor to your website, distorting your stats big time (don't know for sure if this is counted only as chrome)

[Leosghost]

"reopen closed tab"

Opera has had this for a loooooong time..

[blend27]

There is a company called Websense, comes from 208.nnn.nnn.nnn ranges.

They fake UA, big time. Every corporate proxy that is using Websence to spy the their network users has this issue, spreading the fake UAs like crazy.

There is a company called Google, they have Preview option that has "Chrome" in UA.

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko; Google Web Preview) Chrome/12.0.742 Safari/535.1


The numbers are simply not true.

Nice PR Stunt. Link Bait.

[IanKelley]

On the one site I just checked IE is still well ahead, however I have noticed an increasing number of non techie clients and friends using Chrome over the last year. If it's not the majority, it's getting there.

[matrix_jan]

Opera has had this for a loooooong time..

Maybe yours does, mine(11.60) doesn't have it in the right click menu. Anywhere beyond right click menu will take more time to locate than opening and navigating to the particular page. I used to use Opera ten years ago though. Now their tabing system sucks, I browse in maximized window and the tabs are situated little bit lower from the top. So in order to go to other tabs quickly I have to take the mouse pointer to the highest position on the screen and lower a little bit (this lowering sucks).

[fom2001uk]

Couldn't care less how popular Chrome is or it becomes. I have never, and will never use it.