It’s been a while, probably not since Google Chrome was released to the world, but web browsers are back in the big news again all thanks to Microsoft’s EU enforced ‘ballot box’ for selecting a browser to install. This time around, it’s to do with the actual Google Chrome browser share of the market and how well it is starting to gain ground on its established competitors.
Also, Net Applications have recently released statistics which paint a very interesting picture about the world of the internet browser and perhaps that of future operating systems with the likes the Google Chrome OS being spawned from the Google Chrome browser.
Unfortunately, the situation has been pretty similar for a while: IE has boasted over 60% of the market share for years now, with Firefox edging closer and closer to the 25% mark with the rest fighting over the remains. But that looks like it might change, and in fact, Chrome was the only major browser growing in February, and that is before the Microsoft Windows Browser Ballot which promises to change much.
Before we look at why – the figures. Google Chrome is up a significant 0.39% to 5.61%, whilst Firefox fell 0.20% to 24.23% and Internet Explorer suffered the biggest hit with a fall of 0.54% to 61.58%. Opera (0.03%) and Safari (0.08%) both also fell, although seeing as both of them combined fail to make up more than even 8% of the market they are unfortunately not much more than footnotes.
In fact, just looking through the list is quite interesting Opera Mini, Playstation 3 and BlackBerry making an appearance, but it really is the growth of Chrome that is the most interesting part of this survey.
So Google Chrome is on the rise even before Microsoft have introduced the Browser Ballot, but why? Well as various newspapers and TV stations have been catching on to the story they have been having various articles/discussions about which browser is the best which will have brought the fact that there are alternative browsers to the attention to some of those less tech-savvy internet users.
But I don’t think that is the whole story, as although more attention is being brought to the alternative browsers it’s only Google that would seem to be benefiting from this, and I think the reason for this is exactly the same reason that IE has been popular for all these years: people trust Google.
Admittedly there are no extensive studies to back this up, but it does seem logical to suggest that given a choice of products you are more likely to go with the one made by a company you have come to trust, and I believe that this will really be an indication as to what will happen when people are given the choice – many more of the ‘un-browser-educated’ will go for Chrome rather than for the likes of Firefox or Opera merely because they recognise the name…they may already use it every day for searching the Internet… which really goes to show how much of a brand Google is.
So the Google Chrome browser share is on the rise, and could we be seeing it compete with Firefox in the future? Admittedly at this rate, it will take them well over a decade to do so, but it could well become more of a three-horse race in the future, and maybe the possible introduction of a Google Chrome OS laptop (or even on a tablet device?) in future may help this. We shall just have to wait and see!
Via – Netmarket
