Um... Chrome has been ahead of IE in the US for months.
[gs.statcounter.com...]

Are there any stats showing browser share by niche?

The numbers in the article don't match browser stats for my site at all, IE: 45%, Chrome: 19%, FF: 13% Safari: 8%.

I'm wondering if the niche makes the difference.
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Statcounter is slicing browser stats in a curious way

For mine Chrome 23% FF 23% IE 19%

Butit lists tablet and mobile browsers separately as generic groups (I did check to make sure it wasn't double counting):

Phone browsers: 9.8% of which 3% is Chrome and 4% is iPhone
Tablets: 11.6% of which 10% is Safari

Add in the 9% attributed directly to Safari and that is pretty well equal with IE

I just wish that there was the same diversity in search engines!

My site's DOM detected stats for last month...

Chrome: 49.78%
Firefox: 30.26%
MSIE: 6.27%
Safari: 5.43%
Opera: 1.29%

- John

I'm wondering if the niche makes the difference

I own and maintain sites on a very diverse range of subjects and I see different browsers stats for all of them. For most of them, it's IE & Chrome in first and second (usually chrome now), and safari in 3rd.

for me its IE, FF, chrome.

goog has done a great job a toolbaring its browser EVERYWHERE..wanna install flash? yea you totally want chrome too right......chrome gets bundled and defaulted as the main browser its NO WONDER.. i bet most of everyones parents didn't even notice chrome just took over there computer last time they updated some program.

nice going goog... stay evil my friend..... *gag*

Perhaps those stats includes hits from Android amusement devices.

Plus the multitude of Adwords "clients" and hacks trying to boost SEO ratings?

Chrome has been the most popular browser worldwide for two years:

[gs.statcounter.com ]

@J_Rad, being bundled with Flash gives Chrome an unfair advantage over IE, which is bundled with Windows, or Safari which is bundled with MacOS (including iOS)?

Most people use Chrome because they like it. It is well designed to appeal to the average user. Firefox's strength is its extensions, which the average user does not know about (they should call them "apps" and have an "app store").

As far as niche goes, I have one restaurant that's next door to a large financial institution and gets about 60% hits from IE but I can tell it's from that one company.

I also run several sites for theatre companies where IE is almost non-existent; about 10% of visitors.

@J_Rad, being bundled with Flash gives Chrome an unfair advantage over IE, which is bundled with Windows, or Safari which is bundled with MacOS (including iOS)?

they've paid off the OEMs long ago back in the toolbar age... goog junk now comes preinstalled with most all OEMS.....so that one holds no water....well maybe with MacOS.

MS should dictate a clean windows install policy... getting a machine pre-confused sucks.

chrome gets bundled and defaulted as the main browser

I saw this mentioned yesterday by a few different members here and found it kind of strange. I went and looked it up and found out why and added that background info here: [webmasterworld.com...]

To me it says people going for an Adobe Flash update who don't notice the checkbox might be highly upset.

Most people use Chrome because they like it.

That is strange because I have never seen anything that I have liked about it. Not in looks or performance.

And I have also wondered why anyone would use it? Perhaps it's gullibility?

No, it's not gullibility. It's the fastest browser, has great developer tools (granted, that only applies to a portion of users), and has great features.

People like the simple UI - why do you think all the other browsers are copying it?

@J_RaD, IE does still come pre-installed with Windows, whereas Chrome is installed on Windows by some OEMs, so IE is definitely far more widely pre-installed with Windows than Chrome is.

It's the fastest browser

DNS and content caching does nothing for me. Mechanically it's a wreck.

chrom comes bundled with many other programs, infest and makes itself default like a bad disease.

I always uninstall it from every friend's or family systems that falls into my hands and install Iron instead (iron = open source = Chrom without all the Google crap).

BTW, FYI iron register as a chrome hit on most main stream analytics.

DNS and content caching does nothing for me

I was referring to the rendering and JavaScript engines when I said it's the fastest browser.

I also love how easy it is to add extensions for it, using HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

rendering and JavaScript engines

That, right there is is a statement that i have been battling for a few month now.

Do any the statistic packages take into consideration of a Preview Bots(goog wont tell ya), Bots that originate from Hosting Ranges posing as Chrome/Webkit and Such. Easiest thing to spoof is UA.

Flash/Chrome epidemic is also wide spread.

referring to the rendering and JavaScript engines

That may be a myth because I have always encountered a lack of it. But its real failing for me is its failure to support Plugin API like EVERY other browser on the planet always has done. It has always been like that and it's not getting any better.

It's also ugly. Looks like it was designed by amatuers. Give me the Firefox 3 look and feel any day.

Chrome #1? Not very likely, I wonder how they shaped their data to come up with that conclusion.

Can't understand those stats given the rise of mobiles.

My combined stats show roughly:

Safari 39%
Chrome 22%
IE 21%

That matches up with the rise in mobiles being the preferred way to view the web nowadays.

Out of Chrome and IE it seems to me and all I know that Chrome renders quicker and that's the reason why many have swapped. The interface itself is almost irrelevant as long as you can set up a couple of homepage tabs, print and have bookmarks. What else would the average user want.

Chrome seems to be quite heavyweight in memory use, thanks to its multi-process model, even on Linux, if you open lots of tabs, and that must be even worse on Windows - but memory is cheap these days.

@Kendo, it is expertly designed, but not for you (or me either). It is designed for the average user. Firefox is still probably better as a power-user tool because of its extensions (or it would be if it did not crash if you are not careful about which extensions you install), but the average user does not install extensions. Chrome FEELS simple to most people, and they love it. Its very like MacOS.

referring to the rendering and JavaScript engines

That may be a myth because I have always encountered a lack of it.

A myth? The original release of chrome revolutionized JavaScript because it's rendering engine was so much faster than the existing engines that IE and Firefox had no choice but to essentially rebuild from scratch.

It was the change that allowed the "internet as application" we now enjoy to finally happen.

That said, these days all the major browsers are pretty close when it comes to speed. Which, I'd guess, is why FireFox is dying. Speed used to be the reason average users switched from IE to FF. Now, with no big name behind them to get the word out, why would people use it?

The original release of chrome revolutionized JavaScript

The original release of chrome and every next version for the next 10 years was lame. If you are a developer with JavaScript rich web pages then you may be notice JavaScript differences, but note that speed is on the client side and depends on the user's computer resources. On an average computer owned by an average user that computer will be bogged down with bells, whistles and everything else flapping at once and run on a computer chosen for price and not performance, ie: bare minimum of ram and CPU consumed by running the OS.

As a developer supporting plugins on all browsers, I can tell you that Chrome has been and still is the lamest of all. Generally we have to cater for seperate plugins for IE and Mozilla browsers. But Chrome, which is supposed to be Mozilla based, requires different treatment because it does NOT adhere to API and does not handle JavaScript well at all. After suffering 14 years of unexplained crashes and failures, I can only call it "rubbish".

As a developer supporting plugins on all browsers

Browser plugins suck. Sorry, I don't feel sorry for you. Chrome has been the most responsive browser I've used. It had some bumps in early versions, and since then the only problems I've ever had has been with... wait for it... browser plugins crashing! Basing your view of a browser on how it handles plugins just seems short sighted to me.

Basing your view of a browser on how it handles plugins just seems short sighted to me.

My view is based upon:

- Non-conformity to plugin API.
- Crashes while running Javascript for more than a decade.
- Crashes while running Flash for more than a decade.
- Non-conformity of CSS settings that requires adjustment.

Ever wonder why the Adobe PDF plugin runs in all other web browsers but has never been supported in Chrome? A problem they found easier to circumvent by creating Google Docs and forcing users to be redirected to that website... that's right, HIJACKED and redirected to a website without any say or choice given to the user or the website owner/developer.

As for any speed increase with JavaScript, how much of that is confused by Google's DNS caching and content caching?

All it has ever been to this day is an advertising gimmick wrapped into a browser.

:: Shakes head ::
:: Exits conversation ::

@J_RaD, IE does still come pre-installed with Windows, whereas Chrome is installed on Windows by some OEMs, so IE is definitely far more widely pre-installed with Windows than Chrome is.

goog has now wrapped up the chrome push with motherboard
more chrome land mine dodging.... get the system up and running and now i've got to make sure i just install DRIVERs and not have chrome slip on it and set itself as default under the wire.