Google Chrome Becomes World's No. 1 Browser 449
redletterdave writes "Just six months after Google Chrome eclipsed Mozilla's Firefox to become the world's second most popular Web browser, Chrome finally surpassed Microsoft's Internet Explorer on Sunday to become the most-used Web browser in the world, according to Statcounter. Since May 2011, Internet Explorer's global market share has been steadily decreasing from 43.9 percent to 31.4 percent of all worldwide users. In that time, Chrome has climbed from below 20 percent to nearly 32 percent of the market share. Yet, while Chrome is now the No. 1 browser in the world, it still lags behind Internet Explorer here in the U.S., but that will soon change. Chrome currently has 27.1 percent of the U.S. market share, compared to Internet Explorer's 30.9 percent, but IE is seeing significant drop-offs in usage while Chrome continues to rise."
Chromium, (Score:5, Informative)
Like Chrome without the invasive EULA.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I tell friends the same, but they don't listen. They don't seem to care that Google is monitoring their travels across the web and building a profile on them.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's correct. I don't care that they build a profile to more effectively target ads that I ignore toward me.
Re: (Score:3)
Thing is, depending on how well they profile you, you may not be ignoring those ads! Oh the calamity if all the ads you were shown actually resulted in an unavoidable sale... [I think this is google's real plan... no joke.]
Re:Chromium, (Score:4, Insightful)
I tell friends the same, but they don't listen. They don't seem to care that Google is monitoring their travels across the web and building a profile on them.
Or it could be because people looking for Chromium give up after they can't find it on the first page of their site. And the first link points right back to Chrome.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Doesn't Chromium actually require building? I have no idea where to find a compiled exe.
Re:Chromium, (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't Chromium actually require building? I have no idea where to find a compiled exe.
It doesn't require building, but after nearly an hour of searching their website I still couldn't find a direct link to this: http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium [chromium.org]
Which has a prebuilt version.
Re:Chromium, (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't require building, but after nearly an hour of searching their website I still couldn't find a direct link to this:
It cost me all of 5 seconds. What are you trying to accomplish here? I definitely have the feeling you guys are trying to create the impression that Google is trying to hide the Chromium builds, or something.
- Go to google
- Type "download chromium"
- Click first link
- Again, click the first prominently displayed link, which is in a bigger font, and printed bold
Re: (Score:3)
So to prevent that, grab the number from:
Okay good idea, but here's the problem. If you're trying to make an alternative product, you want it to be easy to find yes? Otherwise you're making something that only geeks would use. Isn't the point of making something to distribute it and gain recognition for it?
Re:Chromium, (Score:4, Insightful)
I tell friends the same, but they don't listen. They don't seem to care that Google is monitoring their travels across the web and building a profile on them.
...so that they can show them ads they might be interested in. (oh how sinister!).
Has anyone got evidence of any other activity done with this "profile"?
The only arguments I've heard that carry any weight is the "what if someone hacked google" or "law enforcement getting their hands on it without a warrant" - but these would be a concern for many things we use every day, not just Google.
For me, the decision has always been to either live in a cave or just accept that there's a (very very small) risk and just enjoy what everyone else enjoys. The benefit far outweighs any risk IMO. I suspect most people feel the same way (rather than being completely ignorant as many on here seem to assume).
Chromium still wants you to "sign in" anyway - so isn't that the same thing?
Re: (Score:3)
I like that Chromium also, but I tend to spend my time on Power Manga instead.
False (Score:3, Informative)
Statcounter just tracks requests. Google Chrome started using pre-loading pages, which artificially inflates page views.
Move along.
Re:False (Score:5, Informative)
Statcounter just tracks requests. Google Chrome started using pre-loading pages, which artificially inflates page views. Move along.
Actually they've changed that:
Prerendering adjustment
Further to a significant number of user requests, we are now adjusting our browser stats to remove the effect of prerendering in Google Chrome. From May 1 2012, prerendered pages (that are not actually viewed) are not included in our stats. More information on this is available in our FAQ.
False, according to Statcounter (Score:5, Interesting)
BROWSERS: Do you adjust your browser stats for prerendering/pre-loading? [statcounter.com]
Two browsers are affected by preview-type requests - Chrome and Safari.
Chrome
Further to a significant number of user requests, we are now adjusting our browser stats to remove the effect of prerendering in Google Chrome. From 1 May 2012, prerendered pages (which are not actually viewed) are not included in our stats.
Some points to note:
Prerendering was announced by Chrome in June 2011. This change did not have any significant impact on our stats.
Chrome is currently allowing the detection of prerendering behavior via its Page Visibility API.
Google specifically states:
"Important: This is an experimental API and may change-or even be removed-in the future, especially as the Page Visibility API standard, which is an early draft, evolves."
This means that in the future it may not be possible to track/remove the effect of prerendering on Chrome.
If other browsers adopt prerendering then it may not be possible to track/remove the effect of prerendering on those browsers. In that case, the fairest solution would be to include all page views (prerendered or not) for all browsers rather than only excluding prerendering in Chrome. That scenario would require us to revisit this methodology change in the future.
Safari
The Top Sites feature in Safari shows preview thumbnails of frequently visited sites. These preview thumbnails are refreshed by Safari periodically. Unfortunately, it is not possible to exclude these previews from being tracked. To get a bit technical, this is because the "X-Purpose: preview" header is only sent with the request for the base page. The header is not sent as part of requests for images, CSS or JavaScript that have to be downloaded and executed as part of the Top Sites preview. With online web analytics (as provided by StatCounter) the relevant header information is not passed so these preview requests can't be detected and therefore can't be removed. Ideally Safari will change this to ensure to send the "X-Purpose: preview" header with all Top Sites HTTP requests, however this is not the case at present.
Re:False (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:False (Score:4, Insightful)
You think it's a mandatorily-enabled setting, do you?
Every default setting is mandatory for 99% of users for the simple fact that they don't know they what it is or how to change it.
But what are the weekday numbers like? (Score:5, Interesting)
The "Chrome effect" is the spike of internet trends that only happens on the weekends because geeks and other home-enthusiasts are using alternative browsers since there is no real restriction. What is the percentage of use during 9a-5p monday through friday? Looking at intra-week stats shows this heavily favors IE, or at least it has in the past. What is the trend for business adoption of alternative browsers?
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know any stats company that gives out data on a per hour basis so you can compare business and non-business hours, not to mention not everyone is working but the weekends usually look like this: Chrome +2%, IE -2% and Firefox about even.
Re: (Score:2)
Stats companies can't break out their stats?
Sounds a bit worthless really.
You can miss an entire new emerging market like that.
Re:But what are the weekday numbers like? (Score:4, Insightful)
Stats companies can't break out their stats?
Of course they can, but the first taste is free and for publicity. If you want details, they want to get paid. Seems to be a working business model to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Some do, some don't. Here is an article from a month ago about what I am describing: http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/10/report-chrome-doesnt-win-weekend-browser-battle-after-all-but-still-popular-after-work/ [techcrunch.com]
Re: (Score:2)
IE6 on Windows XP. And that will hold steady until the sun goes dark. Because management won't authorize the funds to update apps coded to that standard.
Re: (Score:3)
If you're working in IT for a company
A small fraction of the corporate web browser seats that generate these statistics. If we build airplanes, for example, you are going to have a difficult time convincing management that your choice of web browser matters. Want to leave? Fine. That just provides ammunition for the people that want to outsource the whole IT process to India.
Re:But what are the weekday numbers like? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're working in IT for a company that still mandates IE6 -- leave. There is high demand for IT workers from good companies that are not on the IE6 FAIL wagon. Failure to upgrade past XP/IE6 is just a symptom. You might as well leave on your own terms. Your job is not going to be around long anyway.
That's what a lot of people said about COBOL... Thirty years ago...
Installbase is all that matters. Safety in numbers, and all that. If there are XP and IE6 deployments, there will be demand for apps, which will sustain deployment.
Yay? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure what to think. I've wanted Microsoft to lose its dominance ever since it eclipsed Netscape browser in 1999, but to replace one evil company that abuses it users, with another evil company that spies on people, is like a pyrrhic victory.
Yes Yay, Celebrate the Competition (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure what to think. I've wanted Microsoft to lose its dominance ever since it eclipsed Netscape browser in 1999, but to replace one evil company that abuses it users, with another evil company that spies on people, is like a pyrrhic victory.
My logic is to celebrate the contenders even if it's just more of the same corporations. Am I the only web developer that noticed that Internet Exploder started getting passably decent as Firefox & Chrome were breathing down their necks? I welcome any sort of race when before it was just the aborted full frontal lobotomy that is IE6 as a candidate.
Besides, roll your own chromium [chromium.org] and kiss any privacy raping proprietary ties goodbye if you want (and without the loss of HTML5 support and standards).
Re: (Score:3)
Am I the only web developer that noticed that Internet Exploder started getting passably decent as Firefox & Chrome were breathing down their necks?
I was thinking about something like that earlier. I seem to remember Microsoft making a claim around 2004 that they were stopping development on IE, that IE6 would be the last version with patches as needed (I don't have a source for that though). Then Firefox 1.0 came out in November of 2004, then Microsoft announced IE7 in Feb 05. I was thinking about the state we're in today, where we have 3 browsers competing for the top spot (sadly, my beloved Opera is still where it always has been), and realizing
Re: (Score:3)
Yup, IE9 is decent. No maybe it is not the fastest browser out there. But as a baseline that you know will be installed sooner or later by most Windows users, it is good. It renders things fast enough, has hardware accelerated graphics, can be secured fairly well.
I have no major problems using IE9 on PC, Safari on my Mac, and Firefox on my *nix installs. They're all "good enoough".
Re:Yes Yay, Celebrate the Competition (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
You can use Firefox instead. Or one of many other browsers.
The important thing here is not so much IE losing the #1 position. It's actually irrelevant since they went under 60, 70% or so. Now pretty much all web pages work fine for pretty much all browsers - compare that to 10 years ago when a large part of the web was IE-only. To view those pages you had to use IE, and companies got away with it because >90% did use IE which came with some convenient but proprietary extensions, and it was not worth cate
Re: (Score:3)
>>>To view those pages you had to use IE,
Or not. I rarely used IE. It was Mosaic, then Netscape, then Firefox as my main browsers, and all of them appeared to render everything just fine.
Many company web pages I have had issues with. Banks were especially notorious to require IE.
And the thing is: everything APPEARS to render just fine. Until you talk to someone on the phone and discuss things you can find on that page, and you can't find the link because that part of the page is simply not rendered. I also have had many issues with links (often javascript) that just didn't work in Mozilla, while it worked fine in IE.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Slashdot should have a "level of evil" monitor for major tech companies.
Chrome is not open source (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of, but not all of, Chrome is open-source. You really want that transparency in a web browser these days. Use Chromium [chromium.org] instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Excepting the Flash player and PDF reader inclusion, reader what is the difference between the two browsers?
Re: (Score:2)
Excepting the Flash player and PDF reader inclusion, reader what is the difference between the two browsers?
How can we know? As Chrome is not FOSS, it's pretty hard to do a diff between Chrome and Chromium.
Re: (Score:2)
I believe Chromium also excludes Google's software update functionality.
Time for cake! (Score:2, Funny)
Where is the cake for Google, Microsoft?
You love to send one to Mozilla every so often, why not Google? Look at how far they have come! Isn't it amazing? Wittle Goog all growed up!
What? No cake policy? Aw, you're just no fun now.
Re:Time for cake! (Score:5, Funny)
Where is the cake for Google, Microsoft?
You love to send one to Mozilla every so often, why not Google? Look at how far they have come! Isn't it amazing? Wittle Goog all growed up!
What? No cake policy? Aw, you're just no fun now.
They stopped sending cakes to Mozilla when they switched to the fast release model for Firefox, once they realized that they were spending a million a quarter on cakes because of a Firefox version coming out every time someone sneezed.
I believe the same would hold for Chrome as well.
Not seeing this on a large UK website (Score:2)
These are the figures for visitors to a 250,000 visits a month site in the UK:
Internet Explorer 44%
Safari 20%
Chrome 17%
Firefox 13%
In any case, I'm not sure what 'choice' many visitors have. Some people get what their IT department installs, others stick with what is on (eg Mac/Safari or Windows/IE), others with what their familt IT support insists on.
Re:Not seeing this on a large UK website (Score:5, Informative)
Safari will always be significantly higher than it should unless you code specifically to ignore the splashscreen's preview feature's HTTP header, which you cannot do in javascript (have to do it with server code), if you're using Google Analytics (very likely).
Thats because that stupid splashscreen executes everything, from javascript to flash ads, and thus trigger all tracking scripts and stuff.
That ends up with you seeing ultra-inflated safari figures, as well as inflated safari bounce rate.
On our site (not huge my some standards, but still several hundred thousand hits per day), and catering to a younger demographic (so higher than usual safari), about 30-40% of our safari hits are "fake" because of this.
good (Score:3, Insightful)
Still mainly a Safari (Mac) man myself, but I'm happy to see anything knock IE off its perch.
I would like Chrome a lot better if (Score:5, Insightful)
My humble theory (Score:3, Informative)
I see a problem with StatCounter stats -- biased demography. StatCounter (in contrast to other players) is used predominantly by small to medium sites.
Now who is the most frequent visitor to a small or obscure site? The webmaster! They keep looking at their site many times every day.
Hence, most of the StatCounter stats are from the webmaster demography. I can assure you that webmasters are biased towards Google. That means that they are more likely to use Google browser.
If you use a stats source that is used only by the biggest players (a la microsoft.com), you will see totally different stats:
IE: 54.09%
Firefox: 20.20%
Chrome: 18.85%
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=0&qpcustomd=0 [hitslink.com]
Re:My humble theory (Score:4, Informative)
Now who is the most frequent visitor to a small or obscure site? The webmaster!
Hence, most of the StatCounter stats are from the webmaster demography.
That seems like a pretty major jump to make without any evidence. The only time I visit a site I've built is when someone reports a problem. The site owner can update their own content, they don't need me with my fancy Opera to do that.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Those stats are cooked using "geo-weighting":
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/faq.aspx#Country [hitslink.com]
You might want to this blog, which explains it better:
http://encosia.com/cooking-the-books-is-hard-and-doesnt-help-anyone/ [encosia.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Out of the 5 trackers listed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser_usage#Summary_table [wikipedia.org], only 1 agrees with statcounter - the other 3 report, on average, *less* usage of MSIE than statcounter.
So, sorry, your theory is flawed.
Android? (Score:5, Interesting)
so, what you're saying is, (Score:4, Funny)
Attention hipsters: (Score:5, Funny)
Chrome has now "sold out", and may only be used "ironically".
The current "hip" browser is now Lynx in an xterm window set to use Helvetica (it's "vintage"). Please adjust your usage accordingly.
Real reason why IE is falling. (Score:3)
By the way, there is a MAJOR reason why usage of Internet Explorer is falling: it lacks automatic spell check. I've read a lot of web browser users have switched to Firefox or Chrome in Windows XP/Vista/7 because IE 8.0 (Windows XP) and IE 9.0 (Vista/7) lack the ability to check spelling.
However, IE 10.0 for Windows 7 and 8 does include spell-checking for the first time, and that may dissuade a good number of users from using alternatives. And unlike IE 8.0 and 9.0, IE 10.0 is WAY more HTML 5.0 compliant, too.
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Informative)
They game and spam other search engines [zdnet.com]
I clicked your link. I read the article you linked. It has nothing at all to do with the text you provided for it. O_o
:o
I can't tell if you accidentally linked the wrong article, or were doing a pretty clever gamble...
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Informative)
The article sez: Google was spamming its own results, but stopped when people called them on it.
No it doesn't. To quote:
Google's statement, according to SearchEngineLand, is:
"We've investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site's PageRank for a period of at least 60 days.We strive to enforce Google's webmaster guidelines consistently in order to provide better search results for users.
While Google did not authorize this campaign, and we can find no remaining violations of our webmaster guidelines, we believe Google should be held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we would against a typical site."
The demotion is a response to a campaign in which bloggers were found posting low-quality content related to Google Chrome in an effort to promote a Google video about King Arthur Flour. At least one of the posts had a hyperlink to the Chrome download page, which can help a site rise in Google search results through Google's PageRank algorithm. But paying people to include such links violates Google's guidelines.
"So far, only one page in the sponsored post campaign has been spotted with a 'straight' link that passed credit to the Chrome page," Sullivan writes. "It's also unlikely that the campaign overall was designed to build links. But my impression is that Google's deciding to penalize itself anyway with a PR reduction, to be safe."
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Insightful)
Should they not promote their own products on their own pages? Should Apple include a link to Dell in its search results?
Yeah yeah, Google's a search engine used to find information on other sites, fuck off. That argument holds no weight and is complete bullshit. When I go to Dell's support site, I am looking for support results, but still get offers on other Dell products, same with Microsoft, same with Ubuntu, same with any other fucking company.
Google is under no obligation to hide their other products. Now, if they were spoofing the search results and spamming Chrome links in the results any time anyone searched for internet browser I'd agree with you. But they're not, they're putting a sparkly ad on their front page, and one ad in the Ads section on the main page. Big, fucking deal.
Re: (Score:3)
A brand new, fresh install of Windows of any OS variation going to google.com will see a "get chrome" button.
The user will be using Internet Explorer because it was installed when Windows was. The home page will default to a Microsoft site like MSN or Bing then the user will have to navigate to Google (by actually typing something in), click on the Chrome is great button, download it and run it after accepting a warning that files from the internet my be dangerous. It is hard to argue Google has some kind of unfair advantage here. If people are actually clicking on what amounts to another ad it shows that they
Re: (Score:2)
Good for Google and good for the web!
Their competitors (Mozilla) know they can't keep up with Google's advertising campaign. It's a shame that it hard to to get any sort of billboard or newspaper ad for Firefox.
At the moment the everything is competitive. But as you say, Google keep on introducing tags that only Chrome understands, I wish they would stop doing that and stick to ratified standard. Many web apps are only supporting Chrome only tags, your example was Angry Birds, mine will be Tweet Deck. Any o
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you please list some Chrome only tags? Are these tags Google created? Or are these HTML 5 tags that other browsers don't exactly support yet?
Re: (Score:3)
Why tags? How about Chrome Native Client the equivallent to ActiveX?
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Interesting)
Why tags? How about Chrome Native Client the equivallent to ActiveX?
Native Client is equivalent to ActiveX in the same way that Google's evil is equivalent to Microsoft's; only occasionally and mostly by accident.
I think Native Client is a bit of a misguided experiment. I worry that a sandbox implemented directly on so many different physical processors will have great difficulty being secure. However, it's not that they aren't aware of these worries and aren't trying to take them into account.
Every time that someone tries to say that "Microsoft is not as evil as they used to be" remember that they keep trying to add features from the above ActiveX list into their new ARM based Windows. Neither Apple nor Google will ever be as sneakily anti-customer, anti-consumer and anti-humanity as Microsoft is. Not even if their management specifically sets out to be.
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>tags that only Chrome understands, I wish they would stop doing that and stick to ratified standard.
Netscape/Mozilla did it when they were dominant. Microsoft did it too. Now it's google's turn.
BTW both those companies are good examples of how no monopoly lasts forever. New upstarts come-along and end the monopoly.
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:4, Insightful)
The Netscape monopoly was overthrown by Microsoft being willing to lose great deals of money and depending on your outlook being willing to leverage another monopoly.
The IE monopoly might very well have lasted a lot longer with concerted effort and government support.
I'm not sure how those examples lead to sanguine confidence that technological lock in is no bid deal.
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW both those companies are good examples of how no monopoly lasts forever.
This argument always grates with me, as if the fact that no monopoly (or anything else in existence) lasts forever somehow makes it okay. Firstly, it can still last a *damn* long time and hold things back for a significant part of one's lifetime. Secondly, in a lot of these cases, one monopoly can be (and frequently is) replaced by another soon after- something that is often touched upon or even accepted by those making that argument, yet with the assumption that this is somehow okay and significantly better than a single, long-lived monopoly.
Well, it's not. The fact that a monopoly might eventually fall when one is old and grey, only to be replaced with another monopoly (yay!) is a piss-poor substitute for a proper balanced and free market.
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Insightful)
So. If I make something really fucking cool that people all want then I suck?
Or am I evil?
Am I screwing over the market?
Being a monopoly is not a bad thing. Abusing monopoly powers is.
Re: (Score:3)
Monopolies are not anything other than good. The only times a monopoly is bad is when...
The problem with saying something so ludicrously OTT like "monopolies are not anything other than good" is that you then sound like you're contradicting yourself in your next sentence. "Monopolies are generally good except when..." would have sounded more level, but would not have let you express your apparent love of monopolies(!)
Other than those cases the ability for a monopoly to exists comes only from its ability to server its market extremely well.
That's exceptionally naive. What about monopolies formed from companies intentionally buying out their competition (which doesn't even *have* to be done via "abusive practices")?
There is nearly a monopoly in the search industry. Because Google did so well for so long. Now Microsoft is spending massively to become better. This makes Google need to step up their own system to keep on top. This is good for us. Which ever way you go you get served better.
A
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Informative)
Monopolies are NOT illegal. I swear to god this is one of the most misunderstood facets of US law. The Sherman Anti-Trust law establishes one illegal act. This is for a Trust (a business with a monopoly on a sector of the economy) to use that Trust to gain another Trust in a second business. In other words, it's illegal for Microsoft who has a monopoly in Operating Systems to use that Monopoly to gain a Monopoly in Internet Browsers.
The Sherman Anti-Trust act came about because the large Trusts of the early 20th century used their Trust to gain control of other businesses. Carnegie used his Trust in Railroads to gain a trust in Steel and Coal. Rockefeller used is Trust in Oil to manipulate early Automobiles, plastics and the petrochemical industry. JP Morgan used is Banking Trust to basically screw everyone.
It's not illegal to have a Trust or to gain a Trust unless you already have a Trust that you are using to gain a second one. The Sherman Anti-Trust act has as a penalty for abuse of a Trust in that it allows the government to forcibly break up the business into smaller pieces (or leavy a fine and restrict the business), but if you never abuse the Trust you can't be punished under the Act. Admittedly it's hard for a Trust NOT to abuse the Trust to further their business but it's not illegal to have a Trust.
Re: (Score:3)
You actually aren't helping it be understood well.
This is true only for astoundingly large values of "one".
A "trust" is not a business with a monopoly, but a particular form of combination of businesses (whether or not i
Re: (Score:2)
>>>they aggressively try to put Chrome on your computer if you install any other software from Google
How so?They install chrome w/o permission?
>>>they pay makers of Angry Birds to have Chrome-only HTML5
What??? It doesn't run on HTML5 Firefox or IE9? What error does it give you?
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Funny)
Nearly so. You can opt out if you find the checkbox hidden in a dark room in Alpha Centaury behind a warning of beware the leopard.
But they don't force people to actualy use it.
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Informative)
> How so?They install chrome w/o permission?
They have in the past, yes. For example, until Microsoft bought Skype, a default Skype install would install Chrome and make it your default browser. If you wanted to avoid that you had to jump through some hoops during the install.
How much money do you think Google paid Skype for that deal?
They have similar deals with Adobe (installing Flash will install Chrome too), some antivirus vendors (Kaspersky, say), and lots of other software distributors.
Welcome the the way business is done in the Googleplex.
> What??? It doesn't run on HTML5 Firefox or IE9?
Nope. It explicitly sniffs for WebKit and refuses to run on other browsers.
> What error does it give you?
"Your browser is not supported".
Re: (Score:3)
Sniffing for WebKit doesn't make it Chrome-only.
Re: (Score:3)
What does it make it, for you? WebKit-only?
Note that it sniffs for WebKit and if it doesn't find it tells the user to go download Chrome.
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:4, Informative)
> But did Google *pay* for Angry Birds to do that?
I have no idea what their contract, if any, with Angry Birds looked like.
But they have certainly been encouraging web developers to do just that, yes.
> And what is your source for that Skype behaviour?
Personal experience, for one thing. You can see a screenshot from the advanced install at http://people.mozilla.org/~khuey/skype-install-2011-10-3.png [mozilla.org] if you want.
As far as a Google search not finding anything.... https://www.google.com/search?q=skype+chrome+bundling [google.com] shows http://www.webmasterworld.com/goog/4135280.htm [webmasterworld.com] and http://www.winrumors.com/skype-for-windows-updated-to-remove-google-product-bundling/ [winrumors.com] and http://mynetx.net/6494/skype-removes-google-integration [mynetx.net]
It also finds, not coincidentally, http://www.osnews.com/comments/25184 [osnews.com] (do read the first response too!) and http://www.salsitasoft.com/2011/09/23/wonder-how-chrome-is-growing-market-share-ask-adobe/ [salsitasoft.com]
A similar search on Bing also finds http://www.quora.com/Just-got-a-Skype-update-and-they-wanted-me-to-install-Chrome-Why [quora.com]
Well deserved (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, but it's not just because of marketing.
The fact is Chrome's a good browser, it moved the state of the web forward, and Chrome's win is well deserved.
In hindsight, Chrome's dropping of the menu was brilliant. I actually don't use 99% of the time.
Secondly, it's fast. It loads pages fast. It loads fast from a cold start. It loads a new tab fast. It loads a new window fast with Ctrl+n. Firefox is sluggish by comparison.
Thirdly, it doesn't have a propensity to crash. I don't bother quitting it if I want to restart it. I just kill it with xkill. I know that there won't be a problem (data corruption or whatever) when it starts up again. If there's some other problem (laptop battery down), it opens the tabs I had open if I tell it to.
By contrast, it's a joke how every time Firefox opens it has the "Well, this is embarrassing" tab ("We couldn't open the tabs you had open last time due to some error, etc.").
Fourth, there's the "senior moments". It's when the Firefox window goes gray in Ubuntu. Seems it happens randomly. Even little kids have picked up on that ("the internet's not working!"). No, Firefox is not working. Doesn't happen in Chrome/Chromium.
As for tracking, use Chromium and turn query completion off.
Re: (Score:2)
Thirdly, it doesn't have a propensity to crash.
Chrome itself doesn't have a propensity to crash, but individual pages sure still do. It's not nearly as annoying, but it happens. And it can definitively hang long enough for Windows to say Chrome is unresponsive, but if you choose to wait it'll almost always come around. It sure better too, because it seems even the simplest tab eats 20MB of memory...
Re: (Score:2)
I know that there won't be a problem (data corruption or whatever) when it starts up again. If there's some other problem (laptop battery down), it opens the tabs I had open if I tell it to.
That's not true actually. I've had Chrome fucked up several times after crashing or computer suddenly going down. So much that it was unable to recover and I had to manually go into the hidden applications data folder and delete all files it used. At the same time Chrome also couldn't recover the passwords file, so I had to start writing them all in again (thank god I use password manager and didn't only rely on Chrome's ability to remember the passwords).
Re:Well deserved (Score:4, Interesting)
The extensions are shite.
Real garbage - and the updating of extensions is primitive, at best.
With all the assets they own or control - Google Code, anyone? - you think that this would improve. No luck. From the Google POV, users should NOT have control over their browsing experience, any more than users of televisions do.
The fact is, Firefox is a browsing TOOLKIT. Chrome is a HTML TV.
Re:Well deserved (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people want a car, not a mobility toolkit.
For 95% of what I do, that's great--i.e., browsing.
Of course, there's Firefox with FasterFox, Web Developer, ScreenGrab, and some others installed for the 5%.
Re:Well deserved (Score:5, Interesting)
Where is the Chrome extension of any significant value that is equal to its Firefox counterpart?
Adblock and Ghostery are better on Safari, than Chrome - and Safari's versions BLOW.
What about the Chrome equivalent of Firebug, or RESTclient, or even Greasemonkey? What about DownloadHelper or DownLoadThemAll? What about FireFTP?
How about Zotero? Nothing this sophisticated, powerful and simple exists in the Chromiverse. The ports to Chrome and Safari can be best described as experimental.
In fact, it is the breadth of Firefox extensibility that best argues its case. The Chrome portal by contrast, is littered with simple CSS shifters for Facebook and YouTube.
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Secondly, it's fast. It loads pages fast. It loads fast from a cold start. It loads a new tab fast. It loads a new window fast with Ctrl+n.
That depends a lot on how much the page itself loads third-party scripts, Flash apps, etc. If you can't block them, it may not matter how fast your browser is.
Re: (Score:3)
>>>Chrome's dropping of the menu was brilliant
Opera did that a long, long time ago. Also Chrome put the menu on the right side. I remember when Netscape 6/7 did that, and they were roundly criticized for violating Windows Usability Standards (species left location). But google? It's okay for them.
>>>fast
Slow as snails on my PC due to opening ~9 different processes (silly) and hogging memory (poor coding). I still use Firefox because it doesn't randomly freeze-up for 30 seconds.
>
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If Chrome runs poorly on my OS that's a Chrome problem, plain and simple. OS bigotry is very 1990s ...
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Chrome works just fine on my Pentium D from 2004. In Windows 7. It works just fine in virtual machines with 512mb of RAM running XP. Snappy, in fact. If chrome doesn't work for you either your hardware is WAY out of date, under spec or you have malware.
I don't run it any more due to the total lack of trust I have in Google, but the browser performs well, regardless.
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Even supporting CISPA [thehill.com].
Read your own links. They haven't "supported the bill", they've "been supportive of finding the right language for the bill". As in, trying to fix it.
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And Google knows when you wipe your arse, what you did it with, and how much you paid the undocumented nanny, while you were distracted from child-rearing, by the arse-wiping task.
They are willing to sell this to bidders. Don't worry! It's only in the "Aggregate". ;-)
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Interesting)
they pay makers of Angry Birds to have Chrome-only HTML5 version of their game
make websites that purposely only work with Chrome
There is no such thing as "Chrome-only HTML5" - those sites are just HTML5, that will work with Chrome. The sites will also run on other browsers if they support HTML5; it's hardly Google's fault if other browsers do not support HTML5, is it?
They game and spam other search engines [zdnet.com] like Bing too.
Interesting article! Did you bother to read it? In fact, it's the complete opposite of trying to game and spam search engines:
Google has demoted its Chrome home page in results for a search using the keyword "browser" following an effort to have bloggers promote the Google browser that backfired. Now, there is no Chrome ad at the top of the results or link to the Chrome page anywhere on the first page of results on Google. It's ranked in position 50, according to Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand, which first reported this news.
Google's statement, according to SearchEngineLand, is:
"We've investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site's PageRank for a period of at least 60 days.We strive to enforce Google's webmaster guidelines consistently in order to provide better search results for users. While Google did not authorize this campaign, and we can find no remaining violations of our webmaster guidelines, we believe Google should be held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we would against a typical site."
Re:No wonder Chrome is gaining users (Score:5, Insightful)
> those sites are just HTML5,
No, those sites are HTML5 plus some browser-specific additions, some of which are Chrome-only, some of which are WebKit-only, some of which are IE-only, some of which are Gecko-only, some of which are Firefox-only, etc.
> The sites will also run on other browsers if they
> support HTML5
Oh, really? Please try running http://getcrackin.angrybirds.com/ [angrybirds.com] in a non-WebKit browser. The page relies on sniffing for a -webkit CSS property in a way that relies on a bug in WebKit's CSSOM implementation, and if that bug is not present of if that prefixed property is not supported, will just show you a "This game can only be played on Chrome" message and a "Download Chrome" button instead of just letting you play the damn game.
Of course if you change the source of your browser to duplicate the CSSOM bug and pretend to have support for that -webkit property, the game does work (especially well if you also add support for yet another non-standard CSS property, actually).
> it's hardly Google's fault if other browsers do not
> support HTML5
It's Google's fault if they push the idea that "Chrome" and "HTML5" are the same thing. It leads to sites like the one linked above and comments like yours....
Insofar as one can talk about "Google" as a monolithic entity anyway. Which is not very much, as evidenced by the quote you give. There are a number of distinct parts of Google that have pretty different goals (e.g. the people doing marketing and bundling deals for Chrome are pretty scummy, the Youtube folks want to build DRM support into HTML, the actual Chrome developers are pretty reasonable for the most part and not exactly always happy with the actions of other parts of Google).
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Yeah and their add blocking plug-in really works good for FaceBook.
Including or excluding Chromium? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The real danger for MS is that as more and more people become familiar with other operating systems like iOS and android they will eventually become more comfortable wit
Re:Superior browser (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's see:
-The toolbar can't be customized
-No real AdBlock
-Extensions are glorified userscripts
-Installs Google Updater
-Memory usage goes through the roof with a lot of tabs opened (higher than Firefox could ever hope it to go)
Yeah...
Re:Superior browser (Score:5, Insightful)
- Toolbar for what? Just to take up space and give me more shit to click?
- AdBlock works perfectly fine in Chrome for me. I don't know where this shit keeps coming from. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddb
- Extensions work fine for me. Not sure what you're driving at on this point.
- Don't have a problem with Google Updater. Does it not work on your system or does it consume too many resources?
- Memory usage across all chrome processes is about the same as Firefox for the same tabs. Sometimes a little more or less. It's inconsequential on my modern computer with 8 GB of RAM.
Chrome is faster, more stable, doesn't require admin rights to update it (that's a big one if you ask me), doesn't have clutter all over the screen.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
sigh...
Let's see:
-The toolbar can't be customized
-No real AdBlock
-Extensions are glorified userscripts
-Installs Google Updater
-Memory usage goes through the roof with a lot of tabs opened (higher than Firefox could ever hope it to go)
Yeah...
Let's see:
-Toolbar isn't manipulated to hell and back, but does have movable components.
-I have AdBlock running on mine right now.
-Extensions are components created by someone to do something inside of the browser. It doesn't matter what they are made from, unless it sl
Re: (Score:3)
Installs Google Updater
You havent installed Firefox 12, or looked at their blueprints, have you?
Heres a hint, the mozilla folks see the Updater and its ability to do less-than-frustrating updates as a good thing, and are working on (and have already released) an updater service for Firefox.
Of course, it can be uninstalled....but then, so can google updater.
I might also add, since we're taking potshots at browsers...
Firefox:
- Most frustrating upgrade experience for users in existence. No MSIs, no update service, randomly begs fo
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Superior browser (Score:4, Funny)
Let's see:
-The toolbar can't be customized
-No real AdBlock
-Extensions are glorified userscripts
-Installs Google Updater
-Memory usage goes through the roof with a lot of tabs opened (higher than Firefox could ever hope it to go)
Don't worry, I'm sure Mozilla are working on getting these features into Firefox as we speak!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Except for plugins.
Re:Superior browser (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for noscript. There's nothing even close to noscript. The existing attempts to implement something like noscript on chrome are just awful beyond belief. I don't give a damn if chrome's JS engine is safer, I don't want the annoyance of JS-powered ads. Nor do I want the annoyance of having it globally turned off and being cumbersome to re-enable.
Scriptno works for me (Score:3)
What's wrong with Scriptno? https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oiigbmnaadbkfbmpbfijlflahbdbdgdf [google.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Mozilla: the company that dropped Linux support on their latest work.
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Hes talking about the update service I presume, which is retarded since Linux has built in mechanisms to keep Firefox current and doesnt need a dedicated daemon to do so.