State of the Browser: Chrome closes on Firefox, IE6 dying out

In the continuing browser wars, 2011 was a bad year for Microsoft and Mozilla. Google was the big success, nearly doubling its market share.

<a href='http://meincmagazine.com/business/news/2012/01/state-of-the-browser-chrome-closes-on-firefox-ie6-dying-out.ars'>Read the whole story</a>

 

[yenic]

Y'know, maybe as someone that genuinely dislikes Chrome, I'm being sensitive, but Firefox is still the alternative browser of choice until Chrome actually, y'know, overtakes it?

It's a horse race article. Fair enough - but the horse that is catching up is not in first place. It's making gains. And there's a very sloppy editorial thought process that keeps trying to push that horse into first place.

I thought the same when I read that. But I think what the author would say (or I'll just give him the idea here and he'll likely just assume it as his own creative defense) is that he meant it's becoming the alternative browser of choice for both IE and FF users that defect from their respective browsers.
Which is a stretch to say in itself as I'm not sure there's data to back that assertion up, it could be that or more likely market growth considering these are percentages, not user counts.

The cold hard truth is that Chrome will never overtake IE until there's a systemic change in world order, so it will never be in first place. IE is, and always will be the most significant, unavoidable browser. IE9 itself, is actually very good. It's my backup if I need something to test outside of FF.

A multibillion dollar corporation beating out a browser from a non-profit is not a huge accomplishment. Beat MICROSOFT, then the Chromedomes will have a little taste of the big leagues and "first place".

 

[yenic]

I'd like to hear from some of Chrome's more articulate evangelicals: why do you like it, and what makes you recommend it to others?

Since nobody's mentioned this yet, I find that Chrome's sync feature works much better for me than Firefox's; Firefox Sync will pretty frequently just refuse to run for me. I also prefer Chrome's built-in developer tool to Firebug.

FF Sync is such a PITA. Chrome is dead simple and brings in everything (especially extensions), not just bookmarks, history, etc.

Unless things have changed in the last year, Chrome is the king of syncing all your goodies.

While I'm like moonshine, not quite understanding why people prefer Chrome over FF. But I use FF sync, it's not a pita. I sync between my home PC, my laptop and my work install of FF. Before FFsync I used Fox/Xmarks. I primarily use IE9 for work (it's just easier and works when all other browsers run into a Sharepoint or some other issue with Citrix or other plugins). I keep my IE9 bookmarks synced as a backup using Xmarks.
I didn't realize Chrome syncs extensions though, that's pretty cool. FF should add that.

-My issues with Chrome in the times I've tried it was the lack of built in RSS feed toolbar support, IIRC it's worse than IE9s. For some unfathomable (web advertising) reason, it has to be added as an extension.
-I encountered rendering issues on pages I visit frequently in short manner, IE9 or FF doesn't give the same issues on the same pages.
-The ad block extension does not act in the same way it does for Firefox, it hides them, it doesn't block them. This raises a number of differences in adblock behavior that I don't like as much.
-I don't see the speed improvements many tout, unless they're talking about benchmarks, but in my anecdotal experience browsing the web with both, FF seems faster on my machine. All of my machines have had Intel SSDs for 4+ years now and are generally high end with a great connection in downtown Chicago.
-From a for-profit corporation, which is never a good idea in any shape or form in my book for privacy or features which results in lowered usability

I would use Chrome over IE9 for my personal use simply due to the fact it has a version of adblock available, but in all other metrics I'd rate IE9 over Chrome. I never found Chrome's advance DNS/precaching to make any real world difference in browsing speed for me.

 

[yenic]

'While I'm like moonshine, not quite understanding why people prefer Chrome over FF. '
I meant I agree with Tom Brokaw.

 

[yenic]

I'd like to hear from some of Chrome's more articulate evangelicals: why do you like it, and what makes you recommend it to others?

Since nobody's mentioned this yet, I find that Chrome's sync feature works much better for me than Firefox's; Firefox Sync will pretty frequently just refuse to run for me. I also prefer Chrome's built-in developer tool to Firebug.

FF Sync is such a PITA. Chrome is dead simple and brings in everything (especially extensions), not just bookmarks, history, etc.

Unless things have changed in the last year, Chrome is the king of syncing all your goodies.

While I'm like moonshine, not quite understanding why people prefer Chrome over FF. But I use FF sync, it's not a pita. I sync between my home PC, my laptop and my work install of FF. Before FFsync I used Fox/Xmarks. I primarily use IE9 for work (it's just easier and works when all other browsers run into a Sharepoint or some other issue with Citrix or other plugins). I keep my IE9 bookmarks synced as a backup using Xmarks.
I didn't realize Chrome syncs extensions though, that's pretty cool. FF should add that.

-My issues with Chrome in the times I've tried it was the lack of built in RSS feed toolbar support, IIRC it's worse than IE9s. For some unfathomable (web advertising) reason, it has to be added as an extension.
-I encountered rendering issues on pages I visit frequently in short manner, IE9 or FF doesn't give the same issues on the same pages.
-The ad block extension does not act in the same way it does for Firefox, it hides them, it doesn't block them. This raises a number of differences in adblock behavior that I don't like as much.
-I don't see the speed improvements many tout, unless they're talking about benchmarks, but in my anecdotal experience browsing the web with both, FF seems faster on my machine. All of my machines have had Intel SSDs for 4+ years now and are generally high end with a great connection in downtown Chicago.
-From a for-profit corporation, which is never a good idea in any shape or form in my book for privacy or features which results in lowered usability

I would use Chrome over IE9 for my personal use simply due to the fact it has a version of adblock available, but in all other metrics I'd rate IE9 over Chrome. I never found Chrome's advance DNS/precaching to make any real world difference in browsing speed for me.

Good post, and well articulated.

As to RSS, i can't comment. Never been a user.

As for rendering, I'm somewhat flummoxed by your post. I haven't personally experienced any of your concerns.

AdBlock on chrome appears to function differently than it does on FF. My personal guesstimation is that since Google relies on ads, the adblock implementation is less "effective" than it is on FF.

-As for speed; blah. All browsers will get you to where you want to go, despite nanoseconds of difference.

-You're going to have to elaborate here. You aversion to anything to is "for profit" leaves me somewhat curious. Firefox, albeit a "non-profit" entity, relies substantially on Google to keep itself in the black, so to speak.

-I'm honestly curious why you think that 'profit' is somehow antithetical to the Mozilla Foundation (or any OSS for that matter.)

You should try RSS on your bookmarks toolbar. I've been using it since I switched to FF in 0.7+ release (2001) and fell in love.

For rendering, I can't name the pages off the top of my head, but I know I find them quickly. One that I do recall is dishonline.com. If you have a Dish subscription and try to watch videos on demand there are many rendering issues that IE and FF don't have when trying to watch videos. Just 1 example, but a critical one for me, I've seen many more in short manner each time I've tried Chrome.

Speed? I agree. There's hardly any difference. For me, FF seems to be the fastest and I don't quite expect it to with all the commentary from people talking about Chrome's speed. I think the references are to group-think (say it enough and it starts to become an undisputed fact), especially in connection to references to benchmarks, rather than significant real-world page load performance advantages.

Stewski already responded on the non-profit part of the equation. I'm not saying it instantly makes FF a better browser, but it's a critical background factor that I keep in mind. Any product from a non-profit vs a for-profit enterprise is going to have dramatically different strings attached, both today and going forward in product development. I feel it's especially important in the web space.

 

[yenic]

And while not a huge deal, I find it annoying that IE9 and Chrome have no search bar, so it defaults to ONE engine.

Bing in MS's case, Google in Chrome's of course.
That's another thing I'd add to my list of issues with Chrome (again can probably be fixed with a little bit of elbow grease but still)- no built-in search bar.

Right now I have a search engine to search all of Craigslist, a search engine for Google Products (Froogle for those who still remember it by that name) and Wikipedia. For me, using ctrl+e to start a new search on a price search engine or Wikipedia gets to be a useful habit.

With Chrome, you're stuck with a SUPERBAR. So amazing, and it's not really innovation, it's because they don't want you to search anything but 1 engine.

Again, another problem with a for-profit browser.
Outside of a stunning victory that causes Mozilla to shut their doors, I can't see any, if ever enough reasons to leave the open source champ.

I prefer Opera over IE and Chrome.
But IE is indispensable if I have to login to my corporate network to do some work and utilize the VPN and Sharepoint sites (and whatever else only works well with IE), or if you find a website that gives any trouble (which I have no examples of failures with FF as I do Chrome)- IE always works.

So that leaves me with FF + IE for backup, on all my systems. I don't bother with much else at this point, though every few months I'll install Chrome, do some testing and end up repulsed.