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>

 

[dferrantino]

Well, you're wrong, I downloaded software were you have to click on the "I agree to the user agreement" and then had to unclick "install Chrome" and "make Chrome my prefered browser".

The software I download is not Bonzi Buddie or animated smiley icons. Apparently Google is paying these companies.

Can you list the software that you've done this with recently?

I believe Avast asked me to install Chrome when I put it on my dad's PC.

 

[Hagen]

Chrome only has tabs on top, which is a massive waste of space with a widescreen monitor.

You know I see frequent comments like this whenever this topic comes up and I really have to wonder exactly what that extra 1/4" really does for anyone. Is it really THAT big of a deal?

 

[DrPizza]

Our usage here at Ars showed small drops for Internet Explorer and Firefox, with small gains for Safari and Chrome. In mobile, the Android browser edged ahead of mobile Safari.

I'm endeavouring to get the chart fixed. The numbers for Safari and Android should be swapped.

 

[DrPizza]

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.

Since people appear to have stopped switching to Firefox, instead switching to Chrome, I think that makes Chrome the alternative browser of choice. People looking for a non-IE browser are no longer going to Firefox.

For people who actually use Firefox, it's not an alternative browser; it's just their browser.

 

[goldfire]

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.

 

[C Boy]

Aww where's my Dolphin love? I know there has to be more than a handful who run it on their android device.

I run Dolphin on my iPhone 4. I love tabbed browsing.

Works great, but I can't seem to figure out where it puts the photos that I download with it.

 

[Hagen]

Since people appear to have stopped switching to Firefox, instead switching to Chrome, I think that makes Chrome the alternative browser of choice. People looking for a non-IE browser are no longer going to Firefox.

For people who actually use Firefox, it's not an alternative browser; it's just their browser.

It doesn't matter if the people who use FF regularly consider it their browser, FF is still an alternative to the mainstream option of IE. Since the alternatives here are anything that is not IE, FF is still the alternative browser of choice, based on all its numbers being larger than Chrome. Chrome is gaining and could pass it this year, but it has not yet.

 

[Tundro Walker]

Our thousands of office PCs still on XP, but hey, at least we get a choice of IE7 or FF3.6

(US based defense contractor)

In a couple of more years you'll be lucky still running XP. Congress is cutting the budget on defense so I heard.

Cut backs! You guys are gonna have to roll back to Win 98 SE w/ IE 4!

 

[AbsoluteChaos92]

I don't do anything related to web development that being said I only browse a couple of websites including arstechnica when I'm online. This can be done without hassle from any browser, IE 9, Firefox, or Chrome. I use chrome, but that just out of habit, I been using it since it came out. I also like how installing extension doesn't require restarting but I don't install that many. Chrome crashes a lot on me lately, but its mostly because of flash. I would probably be fine with Opera, Firefox, or even IE 9. I think it comes down to preferences. I doubt Chrome is that much faster than the competition now then when it came out.

 

[berry64]

If it was not for the Add Ons, I think I would quite like using IE 9, it is very fast and renders well, but no Ad Block just kills it for me.

IE9 has an impressive ad blocking feature built right in, for free, forever. With a few mouse clicks, one can easily block unwanted web beacons, and ads.

manage addons > tracking protection > get a tracking protection list online...

 

[Nisuo]

Our thousands of office PCs still on XP, but hey, at least we get a choice of IE7 or FF3.6

(US based defense contractor)

In a couple of more years you'll be lucky still running XP. Congress is cutting the budget on defense so I heard.

The DoD will likely not stay with XP for long, because of how horribly unsecure it is. It was done out of necessity because 2000 simply didn't have support. I wouldn't be surprised if they jumped to 7 for Bitlocker soon.

(US "Federal" Programmer/Engineer)

 

[Tom Brokaw]

Thanks to those who answered my questions. I worried after I posted that it might be taken as trollbait and that was not my intention. Chrome is popular, and I don't care for it, so I wanted an explanation. Thanks, I got a lot of informative responses.

Thanks also to those who posted fixes for my mom's bookmark issue. I'll send her the link to the Tag and copy/pasting manually will work for now.

 

[BinaryFu]

Right tool for the right job.

When Chrome has a plugin feature and has something similar to AdBlock Plus, I'll have that as my default browser - for everything except Netflix, which works flawlessly on IE.

Until then, there's Firefox for surfing the web, Chrome for sandboxing and IE for Netflix.

 

[cactusbush]

AntiGenX wrote:
"And then there are the weirdos like me that use ....... edit: P.S. - Yes, I'm paranoid.

Ditto. Firefox 3.6.16 & 9.0.1, Opera and Iron (a Chrome clone with better privacy). Each browser does things a little diffrently. I'm finding myself using Opera more for forums like Ars because it skips the passwords and sign in hassle. Firefox 3 has all the bells and whistles, themes and add-ons that will never catch up to monthly updated versions of Firefox.

When opening captured web pages saved off line, Opera quickly displays the page while Firefox repeatedly tries to make a connection beforehand. There is no primary browser on this desktop. While the value of capturing certain technical web pages can only be appreciated by someone like me, Firefox is the more valued browser.

Iron [http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php] is fast.
I use it (and FF) as a portable app, from a USB key on several laptops that I don't own. Like Chrome it probably cuts some corners to achieve that speed. Noticed the other day for example that Iron doesn't employ or call a spell checker when commenting here on Ars. Does Chrome skip the spell checking too? I won't do Chrome because - like AntiGenx; I'm paranoid.

Following are clips of right mouse click context menus. Order is Iron, Firefox, Opera, IE. While adding overhead to a browsers performance, some options are more useful than others.

didn't realize this BBS would chop the image like that so:

 

[hobgoblin]

lets not confuse things. Opera MINI is the J2ME browser that pass most of the workload over to Opera run proxy servers. Opera MOBILE is a full browser on par with Safari Mobile, Firefox Mobile or Android browser.

Thanks.
*sigh* Opera should really do something about their naming schema.
If I'd get a dollar everytime someone gets this wrong...

Opera Mobile has a long history tho. I think it started life on Symbian and WinPocketPC!

 

[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".

 

[hobgoblin]

I have never quite understood why the whole "browser wars" thing happened. MS don't make any money out of it. Netscape/Mozilla do not either. I totally understand the need for choice, and I am glad there is more than there was.
I am a web developer (on a PC) and so I use Firefox because it has very useful extensions. Otherwise I would use Chrome because its fast simple and sleek. There remains no reason at all to use MSIE as far as I can see.

It was a proxy war about web servers, where the real money was hidden.

Also, Netscape solidly walked onto MS turf with Communicator. A one stop client pages for all your groupware needs.

So the war was more about the corporate intranet (remember that buzzword?) than the internet. It just so happened that intranet leveraged internet tech for internal corporate use.

So in essence, Netscape was trying to get onto MS turf. Turf that MS had grabbed from Novell back in the day, because Novell had ignored the client end. This by leaving it to MS to provide the client software for Novell Netware servers. What MS did was to also bundle a client for their Exchange server, and then selling Exchange as a slide in replacement for Netware. This with the argument that companies could use clients that was already installed on the employee desktops.

So the real war was about pr seat server licensing. It just so happened that it would impact the web by way of the shared technologies.

 

[Tamsen]

Whats with Opera mobile? I had no idea it was so popular.

It can run on practically any phone and has Opera turbo, which uses servers to compress web pages. As there are still quite a few older phones out there, both of these greatly help, if not make it the only viable option.

That and Opera is brilliant.

 

[JohnnyTheGeek]

What's key with these numbers is that Internet Explorer is slowly losing users. Even Firefox is taking a hit.
What many may not notice is that Safari is going nowhere on computers. Its what I have been saying about Apple for a while. They are not a computer company anymore. They are doing better as a phone maker and a Tablet maker. The computers are just icing on the cake. I think truly behind closed doors Apple has talked about how the Mac is not growing much and that they decided a while back to focus elsewhere. I know will say that Safari's stagnant browser does not mean the same for Mac's. But I think it does reflect some on how little the computer market is growing.
Microsoft would be smart to focus less on IE and more on its core OS. I think IE has become a Enterprise browsers.

 

[tigas]

Adobe Reader/Flash/Shockwave download pages ask you to opt-out of downloading an installer that installs Chrome. You have to UNCHECK the option and then you can download a clean installer. Speed clickers will get Chromed.

I've just tried this in FF on 7 x64, and Shockwave doesn't offer me anything, and Reader and Flash offer me McAfee Security Scan plus. No shiny there for me at least.

OMG, it's even more insidious! Try to download Flash with Opera and you'll get a Chrome offer! I had never noticed otherwise because I *only* use Opera.

 

[tigas]

Whats with Opera mobile? I had no idea it was so popular.

It can run on practically any phone and has Opera turbo, which uses servers to compress web pages. As there are still quite a few older phones out there, both of these greatly help, if not make it the only viable option.

That and Opera is brilliant.

You're also confused.

Opera Mobile runs on Android, Symbian, MeeGo and Windows Mobile 6.x. It recompresses images on Opera's servers in Turbo mode, but HTML/JS/CSS code is always left unchanged and rendered normally.

Opera Mini runs on those OSes and on iOS, BB, and (important) J2ME featurephones. Pages are rendered in Opera's servers, images are resized for the specific terminal resolution, and HTML/CSS/JS code is translated to an intermediary markup language. Opera Mini has Turbo always on AND has a supercharger.

The confusion arises because usually Mini is ported to new OSes a lot sooner than Mobile as it's a very simple client, and people associate Mini to "Opera" thereafter until someone points out months later that "there is ANOTHER" Opera . *And* because due to "walled garden" restrictions, Mobile will never appear in iOS or WP7.

[edited: Opera Mini OS support clarification]

 

[hobgoblin]

Whats with Opera mobile? I had no idea it was so popular.

It can run on practically any phone and has Opera turbo, which uses servers to compress web pages. As there are still quite a few older phones out there, both of these greatly help, if not make it the only viable option.

That and Opera is brilliant.

You're also confused.

Opera Mobile runs on Android, Symbian, MeeGo and Windows Mobile 6.x. It recompresses images on Opera's servers in Turbo mode, but HTML/JS/CSS code is always left unchanged and rendered normally.

Opera Mini runs on the latter and on iOS, BB, and (important) J2ME featurephones. Pages are rendered in Opera's servers, images are resized for the specific terminal resolution, and HTML/CSS/JS code is translated to an intermediary markup language. Opera Mini has Turbo always on AND has a supercharger.

The confusion arises because usually Mini is ported to new OSes a lot sooner than Mobile as it's a very simple client, and people associate Mini to "Opera" thereafter until someone points out months later that "there is ANOTHER" Opera . *And* because due to "walled garden" restrictions, Mobile will never appear in iOS or WP7.

Both has the option of rendering pages in "single column mode", where the layout of the page is converted so that it becomes a very long column of texts and links. This also extends drop down lists and similar, making them easier to interact with when operating a device that can't do "mouse over".

 

[tigas]

Ah yes, "Small Screen Rendering". That comes from a long time ago and is more of an acessibility option. Since it replaces the page layout completely, it's mainly a curiosity.

I can't remember the reasoning but I believe it tried to automatically reformat regular sites for showing on the 1st generation smartphones like the SonyEricsson P800 which had very simple browser rendering. It gave Opera a weapon for the war that was going on at the time between those who wanted a walled garden for mobile pages (WAP) and those that wanted the intelligence to be on the terminals, which were free to connect to the Web at large and just reformat the regular Web pages for the device. Since at the time smartphones were few and far between, nobody did "mobile" versions of sites.

On Opera Desktop you can test this rendering mode by adding a site to the sidebar (select a bookmark and check the "Show in sidebar" option).

 

[hobgoblin]

I kinda like using it in Opera Mini, as it allows me to read a page by simply hitting 2 and 8

Yep i use a keypad phone. Works wonders as a HSPA dongle for my computers and bluetoothed handhelds.

 

[moonshine]

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.

 

[tigas]

I kinda like using it in Opera Mini, as it allows me to read a page by simply hitting 2 and 8

Yep i use a keypad phone. Works wonders as a HSPA dongle for my computers and bluetoothed handhelds.

I'm not dissing it. I used Opera Mini to torture a SonyEricsson T700 in exactly the same way. Now I have a Nokia N95 but unfortunately mine is the original version and can't run Opera Mobile due to lack of built-in RAM.

 

[Hagen]

I think truly behind closed doors Apple has talked about how the Mac is not growing much and that they decided a while back to focus elsewhere. I know will say that Safari's stagnant browser does not mean the same for Mac's.

What's hilarious about this is how completely backwards what you're saying is. Are they doing great w/smartphones and tablets? Of course. Their sales of Macs have been only increasing every quarter for years now and their market share hasn't been this high since the Apple ][ was the reigning system in the computer industry for that short period before the IBM PC and it's compatibles began to takeover the market from Apple.

Safari on the PC may not be making much of an impact, but many Mac users use it. Granted, I own a Mac and use Safari and FF and occasionally Chrome, but just like many people will just use whatever browser is included on the system, many will just use Safari. I've been using FF lately b/c of the beach balling issues Safari has had in its most recent versions. I'm not sure how it's doing on the PC side since my wife is the only one w/a PC at home now and while I'm on a team at work that does web testing, I'm not one of the Safari testers.

 

[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.

 

[dadsfolk]

I'm another Chrome convert. On my Windows machines, it was Chrome/IE8/Firefox/Safari - mainly because Firefox was slow. IE leaked memory, and did some weird rendering tricks, so I gave up on it. IE 9 was worse, causing odd problems accessing our WIKI and other random pages; none of us but those who had to evaluate it downloaded it. Putting it into autoupdate is a disaster in the making. My second choice of browsers varied situationally.

Chrome was fast, slimmed-down and reliable (except for when I overloaded it and it started giving me snap pages, and I had to reboot). Firefox was the favorite of the developers because of useful plugins, but many started using Chrome for general browsing.

On my Macs, I use Chrome/Safari. Both work fine, but I like the common interface across machines, so use Chrome normally. I have IE for Mac (useless), IE in a Windows 7 VM (as a control, or for those sites which seem to work only with IE). My other browser is SeaMonkey (on both platforms), the open-source successor to Netscape Communicator, which I recommend to novices who need to edit internal HTML pages, because of its simple integrated HTML editor. It's also a useful check; when I was in QA (and IE ruled), I used to use Netscape to find web page errors which IE papered over.

 

[AndreaFaulds]

Whats with Opera mobile? I had no idea it was so popular.

It's the only option for some older or non-smart phones. It also isn't a true browser. Page requests are passed through Opera's servers which render the site and pass an image of it to the phone.

Works OK for static sites though.

Uh, no that's not how it works... It is a true browser, and only images and some other things are pre-compressed by the server. Of course, you can turn it off in the non "Mini" version.

Opere has always had a big market share in mobile, and in smart phones it's also pretty popular.

You're wrong too I'm afraid. It isn't a true browser. It receives a super-compressed proprietary format "page" from Opera's servers.

What you're thinking of is Opera Turbo.

 

[hobgoblin]

Whats with Opera mobile? I had no idea it was so popular.

It's the only option for some older or non-smart phones. It also isn't a true browser. Page requests are passed through Opera's servers which render the site and pass an image of it to the phone.

Works OK for static sites though.

Uh, no that's not how it works... It is a true browser, and only images and some other things are pre-compressed by the server. Of course, you can turn it off in the non "Mini" version.

Opere has always had a big market share in mobile, and in smart phones it's also pretty popular.

You're wrong too I'm afraid. It isn't a true browser. It receives a super-compressed proprietary format "page" from Opera's servers.

What you're thinking of is Opera Turbo.

Turbo is a, very optional, feature in Opera Mobile and Opera (desktop). It uses the same servers as Opera Mini, but to a more limited degree than in Opera Mini.

 

[moonshine]

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.)

 

[stewski]

After seeing a lot of these 'Chrome is gaining share' articles, I still can't understand why nobody seems to have noticed that the amount of Chrome users may not be based on a preference-I work in a support tech/repair workshop role and I see a lot of users comig through with no idea of which browser they have or if there is any real difference between the big 4. Most that have Chrome have usually had it installed via bundling with OEM bloatware or some random little toolbar/app etc that they didn't even know they had installed (let alone use), and many of those have Safari and Firefox installed as well, and wouldn't have the slightest idea which browser was better/worse/more secure etc. I personally think that until the bundling is regulated or the percentages are weighted appropriately, at the very we at least need a disclaimer added to the stats for clarification. I know this may sound a bit whiny but I feel that it has introduced a variable that hasn't been addressed.

Indeed browsers can be installed with bloatware, the dad of this is of course IE which comes pre installed by the OEM with the winndows bloatware most often!

 

[stewski]

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

Perhaps you need to do a little bit of reading to answer your own question:

The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that promotes openness, innovation and participation on the Internet.

http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/

 

[stewski]

Since people appear to have stopped switching to Firefox, instead switching to Chrome, I think that makes Chrome the alternative browser of choice. People looking for a non-IE browser are no longer going to Firefox.

For people who actually use Firefox, it's not an alternative browser; it's just their browser.

It doesn't matter if the people who use FF regularly consider it their browser, FF is still an alternative to the mainstream option of IE. Since the alternatives here are anything that is not IE, FF is still the alternative browser of choice, based on all its numbers being larger than Chrome. Chrome is gaining and could pass it this year, but it has not yet.

Agreed, this was mistaken language.
1. I'm not sure how we are tracking user choice to switch away from IE but I'd accept that market share is likely a fair proxy.
2. The market share for FF is larger than chrome today, therefore it is the Alternative browser of choice.

Much as chrome's recent success has been phenomenal (as was FF's earlier uptake considering IE's advantages), You and I have no idea what's coming next year. Maybe even MS will make a cross platform browser that is, you know, good for the web and doesn't get replaced by end users at a huge pace, even as their OS sales are supposedly faster than they have ever been

 

[Gangryong]

I love chrome. I like Google. Their designs are always intuitive. I'd love it for Google to really make a run at the Desktop OS market. MS only recently really started to show interest in innovating the browser market thanks to FF and Google. I believe competition is great. I believe the same could happen if someone really tried to pull MS out of it's stupor it's currently in the Desktop OS Market.

Reasons I like Chrome.

1, Speed. It's super fast.
2, Interface design. It makes sense to me. When I think something should be in a specific spot in settings it's generally there.

Most people complain about privacy on chrome, I don't really care. If I get ads tailored to my needs, how is that a loss?

 

[whatdouno]

The only reason I used IE is that there are actual websites out there that only function when using IE and no other browser. I've especially noticed this with job-search websites. You try to fill out a form in Firefox, even with IE tabs in Firefox, and it will not save the info you just spend a half-hour typing in, or it will not open when you put in your password, or it will not upload your resume, etc.. So when I apply for a job, I always use Internet Explorer.

It's not like you can complain about it when you're going to a company looking for a job, you know?

 

[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.

 

[elangomatt]

Aww where's my Dolphin love? I know there has to be more than a handful who run it on their android device.

I am a Dolphin user too. That is pretty much the only browser I use on my Android phone, android tablet, and iPad2.