Chrome Becoming World's Second Most Popular Web Browser

redletterdave writes with news that Google Chrome is in the process of surpassing Firefox to become the second most popular web browser. Pinpointing the exact time of the change is difficult, of course, since different analytics firms collect slightly different data. The current crop of media reports were triggered by data from StatCounter, which shows Chrome at 25.69% and Firefox at 25.23% for November. Data from Net Applications shows Firefox still holding a 4% lead, but the trends suggest it will evaporate within a few months.

Re:ff sux

[swinferno]

it really does not. I still find the available plug-ins and interface reason enough to continue FF as my main browser even if it takes 2 second longer to load on start up...soit

Re:And still...

[NSash]

It matters because when they increment the major version number unnecessarily, it breaks extensions (which are the main reason to use firefox).

Re:They screwed it with the new release process

[Freedom Bug]

Actually, Firefox has done a lot to improve addon compatibility. They now have a bot that checks the API calls of all addons in their repository and automatically marks those that don't use any changed API's.

Re:Inevitable.

[jonnythan]

AdBlock Plus runs on Chrome. It's in Google's Chrome Web Store.

Re:And still...

[icebraining]

AMO now automatically updates the major version for every extension that passes a series of automated tests.

Konquering the world

[flyingfsck]

I always liked KDE Konqueror browser, but never thought that it would supplant Firefox - albeit by a different name.

Re:One advantage FF has over Chrome, IMO

[fish waffle]

According to wikipedia at least, there is only one fully non-optional point at which chrome contacts its masters, and that's a unique token generated during install to count unique installs. After that you can avoid any info being sent back to google by turning off settings for instant search, not agreeing to send crash reports, not using google search, disabling auto-updates, and never mistyping a page name and getting a server not found error. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#Usage_tracking [wikipedia.org]

It is more effort than is required with FF, and although they've _promised_ not to be evil it is wise to be wary of evolving intentions and what will become of all the info they collect. But note that use of instant google search and auto-suggest and the safe-search settings send info to google when using FF as well, so that's not much different.

Try Perspectives

[tepples]

they really need [...] to replace the 13-click procedure for broken SSL certificates with a simple pop-up window.

Most people will just click past a broken certificate even when it's an obvious man in the middle (MITM) attack because they want to see the dancing bunnies [wikipedia.org].

But there's an extension for that, and it's called Perspectives. A browser with the Perspectives extension communicates with notaries scattered throughout the Internet to make sure that the certificate you see is the same certificate that other people have been seeing. The one weakness happens when the MITM is between the SSL server and its only connection to the Internet, but the Perspectives developers appear to operate under the assumption what the whitepaper [wordpress.com] calls an "Lserver attack" won't happen often.

Re:Inevitable.

[ohnocitizen]

The problems with modern Firefox are:

1. The UI itself is slow and prone to freezes
2. If one page slows/freezes the browser, the entire application slows/freezes
3. Firefox is currently less stable than Chrome

If they fix these issues, they will see more users flock their way.

Safari

[goombah99]

I use safari so I have to post an off topic comment right below the first post. In the 2 years I went from safari to firefox, cause it lacked plugins and compatibility, and then when firefox got slow to chrome which was lightning fast. But Then I noticed that for chrome didn't work well with Netflix streaming (Netflix tech support agrees so it's not me) and I also started getting more and more ads related to websites I visited. To solve the Netflix streaming issues, I went back to safari with Lion 10.7. And Wow, safari is now awesome. It's plenty fast and has plugins like flash block. It works on more sites than even Firefox. I briefly flirted with Opera but liked safari because it was more mac-like in expected behaviors.

So for the next year I'm using safari. Which browser is king varies.

Re:And still...

[9jack9]

And still Mozilla doesn't get a clue that some of the recent changes are driving away users

Actually, I switched BACK to Firefox during this last year from several years of Chrome recently, and I couldn't be happier. Extensions have been a big part of that. So have the recent changes.

Noscript and Ghoster have shown me how truly pervasive Google is. The majority of websites that I ever visit run some sort of Google scripting. I'm not being a hater here. I like Google. That aren't evil, right? I just like having some control. Or at least the illusion of it. And I know, Mozilla gets funding from Google. I hope that doesn't mean that FF reports every click back to the Google mothership, but you never know.

I also run Chrome, IE, and Opera, but of the bunch, I'm the happiest with Firefox.

Re:And still...

[DeadboltX]

Yet the only thing they really need to copy to get me to come back and try Firefox again is to replace the 13-click procedure for broken SSL certificates with a simple pop-up window. As it used to be.

You open a page with an invalid certificate:
1) click "I understand the risks"
2) click "add exception"
3) click "confirm exception"

I'm not sure where you're extra 10 clicks are coming from.