Chrome fades as users return to IE, Firefox

Google browser's share slips, IE and Firefox reverse the erosion, Safari still immune

Gregg Keizer

September 23, 2008 (Computerworld) Chrome's share of the browser market is fading as users who abandoned Internet Explorer and Firefox start to return, an Internet measurement company said today.

At the end of its third week of availability, Google Inc.'s Chrome accounted for 0.77% of the browsers that visited the 40,000 sites tracked by Net Applications, down from a 0.85% share the week before.

"The trend line on Chrome still has a slight downward angle, and these weekly numbers reflect that," said Vince Vizzaccaro, Net Applications' executive vice president of marketing. Although Chrome popped above 1% within hours of its release, the new browser now reaches that mark only in the middle of the night, U.S. time, Vizzaccaro added.

Chrome's numbers, like those of Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox and Apple Inc.'s Safari, typically climb after work hours and then fall as work resumes the next day. Many businesses standardize on Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer (IE) and don't allow employees to use alternate browsers.

IE and Firefox still showed share erosion compared to the period immediately before Chrome's Sept. 2 debut, but both browsers regained users last week, Vizzaccaro said. IE picked up 0.24 percentage points last week, while Firefox regained 0.06 points. Both, however, remained down for the month, as was Opera Software ASA's Opera and AOL LLC's now-defunct Netscape.

Safari, the only browser to escape Chrome's impact, was still on the plus side for September, ending last week up 0.45 percentage points before Chrome, although that was down from the prior week's 0.68-point net gain.

Last week, Vizzaccaro said Safari's immunity could be traced to the lack of Chrome competition. Although Google has promised a native Mac OS X edition, its browser is currently only available for Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Computerworld's site metrics echoed Net Applications' trend for Chrome. The percentage of visitors to Computerworld.com who used Google's browser dropped to 4.01 points last week, down from 4.96 points.

Chrome's slow slide may be because of Google's low-key promotion, Vizzaccaro said. "The only marketing effort I've seen from Google is in sponsored links on search results for 'browser' or 'browsers' search terms," he said. "On Google, Chrome is naturally the top sponsored link. On Yahoo, it was second. And on Windows Live, I couldn't even find it in the first five pages of organic results."

Week starting	Aug. 24	Aug. 31	Sept. 7	Sept. 15	Net Change
IE	72.39%	71.03%	71.24%	71.48%	-0.91%
Firefox	19.54%	19.78%	19.35%	19.42%	-0.13%
Safari	6.27%	6.67%	6.95%	6.73%	0.45%
Chrome	-----	0.67%	0.85%	0.77%	0.77%
Opera	0.74%	0.75%	0.70%	0.68%	-0.06%
Netscape	0.77%	0.83%	0.67%	0.66%	-0.11%

Source: Net Applications

===========================================================================
역시 유저들이 크롬에 등을 돌리기 시작했다. 그도 그럴 수밖에 없는 것이 현재 크롬은 Windows XP와 비스타 버젼에서만 돌아가도록 되어 있다. 하지만 윈도계열은 다른 브라우저를 받기보단 껴서파는 IE를 사용하기 마련이다. 더군다나 한국에서는 IE가 아니면 보안성 문제로 제대로 돌아가지 않는 사이트가 엄청 많다.
그렇다고는 해도... 사기성 높은 저 점유율은.....ㄷㄷㄷ
(다른 브라우저는 다 사용해봤는데 사파리는 안써봤다. 3위를 차지하는 것으로 봐서 꽤 괜찮은 기능을 보유하고 있는 것 같긴 한데..