Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

[ Create a new account ]

Google's Chrome Declining In Popularity

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday October 13, @12:20PM
from the still-no-mac-version dept.
The Internet Google
holy_calamity writes "After launching in a blaze of publicity that even warmed Slashdot, Google's browser grabbed a 3% share of the market, but has been slipping ever since, and now accounts for 1.5%. Google has also stopped promoting the browser on its search page. Assuming they wanted it to grab a significant share of the browser market, have they dropped the ball, or is this part of the plan?" On Slashdot, Chrome is still the #4 browser (after FF, IE, and Safari) but it was ahead of Safari for a few days, hitting almost 10% of our traffic.
internet google chrome !addons !linux
tech internet
story

Related Stories

[+] Google Chrome, the Google Browser 807 comments
Philipp Lenssen writes "Google announced their very own browser project called Google Chrome — an announcement in the form of a comic book drawn by Scott McCloud, no less. Google says Google Chrome will be open source, include a new JavaScript virtual machine, include the Google Gears add-on by default, and put the tabs above the address bar (not below), among other things. I've also uploaded Google's comic book with all the details (details given from Google's perspective, anyway... let's see how this holds up). While Google provided the URL www.google.com/chrome there's nothing up there yet."
Firehose:Google's Chrome declining in popularity by holy_calamity (872269)
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Google's Chrome Declining In Popularity 25 Comments More | Login | Reply /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More | Login | Reply
Loading... please wait.

  • I know why... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Iceykitsune (1059892) <stevemon23&gmail,com> on Monday October 13, @12:22PM (#25356971)
    No add-ons. I want my ad block plus please.

    • Re:I know why... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 13, @12:24PM (#25357011)

      I booted up windows to see what all the fuss was about, then went right back to linux. Let me know when they have a package in the ubuntu repository.

    • Re:I know why... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Nethead (1563) <joe@nethead.com> on Monday October 13, @12:24PM (#25357017) Homepage Journal

      and no-script. Does it run on FreeBSD yet?

    • Re:I know why... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by outcast36 (696132) on Monday October 13, @12:42PM (#25357381) Homepage
      I'm sill using Chrome, so I'm currently an outcast. I have Firefox3 with 9 plugins (of course AdBlock/Flashblock/... and so on). The major reason I keep using Chrome is that the Javascript engine is so much faster. It is actually faster for me to load all the extra crap with Chrome than it is for adblock to remove it and render the page with stuff missing. It sounds ridiculous, but it is my experience. Of course now my privacy is being raped 8 ways to Sunday, but its worth it for that 15 extra milliseconds of my life.

    • Re:I know why... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Just Some Guy (3352) <kirk+slashdot@strauser.com> on Monday October 13, @12:48PM (#25357493) Journal

      No add-ons. I want my ad block plus please.

      According to one source [internetworldstats.com], there are about 1.5 billion Internet users in the world. Another source [hitslink.com] estimates that maybe 20%, or 300 million of them, are using Firefox.

      Now, Mozilla.org says that most popular add-on [mozilla.org] right now is Video DownloadHelper with about 340K downloads each week. However, its developers have released 32 versions in the last 22 months [mozilla.org], so a big chunk of downloads will be for upgraders. Let's assume that a full one-half of all downloads are first-time users and not people upgrading from last week's version, and that 100% of downloaders actually use it. That means that Video DownloadHelper has about 16,000,000 users, or about 5% of Firefox's user base.

      You like add-ons. I like add-ons. Objectively, though, we're a very small minority of users. The numbers look even worse for your position when you consider that the majority of Internet users are browsing with Internet Explorer, and therefore wouldn't miss add-ons were they to switch to Chrome.

      There are a lot of reasons why people might not be using Chrome. The lack of add-ons is almost certainly not an important one, statistically speaking.

      • Re:I know why... (Score:5, Informative)

        by AGRW (745778) on Monday October 13, @12:34PM (#25357197)
        Seems some basic things don't work... Basic functional issues: #1 Chrome UI Freezes uploading files. #2 Stops playing you tube vidoes after third one, need to restart chrome to play video. #3 Memory hog, freezes sometimes when low on memory. Firefox, IE, Opera, Safari don't have these basic functional issues. Maybe a limited beta would have been more suitable...

      • Re:I know why... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Jim Hall (2985) on Monday October 13, @01:01PM (#25357713) Homepage

        For me, the issue was No native Linux version. Yes, there's the Linux version provided by the CrossOver guys, and that's great. I've used it a few times. But it takes forever to launch, and is generally a little slow. A native application would be better.

        I'll look at Chrome again when there's a native version for Linux.

  • I thought it was in beta (Score:5, Insightful)

    by UndyingShadow (867720) on Monday October 13, @12:23PM (#25356989)
    I'm waiting for it to mature. I thought that was the whole point, we test it out, see what we like and wait for it to mature into a stable product.

    • Re:I thought it was in beta (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Praxx (918463) on Monday October 13, @12:26PM (#25357059) Homepage
      The fact that people are still using it regularly despite it being beta should say something at least.

    • Re:I thought it was in beta (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thehorse (899389) on Monday October 13, @12:26PM (#25357069)
      Yes, I was expecting google to come out with a few more updates at a faster pace. There were too many issues that prevented me from using it to become my primary browser (flash/shockwave video freezing/crashing, rendering issues with a few sites). I still use the incognito feature for por... I mean, for banking.

    • Re:I thought it was in beta (Score:5, Funny)

      by sulfur (1008327) on Monday October 13, @12:26PM (#25357073)
      Google products coming out of beta? I'll be playing Duke Nukem Forever long time before it happens.

    • Re:I thought it was in beta (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fm6 (162816) on Monday October 13, @12:41PM (#25357347) Homepage Journal

      Well, "beta" doesn't necessarily mean "not ready for day to day use", especially with Google products. GMail has millions of users, but is still officially "beta."

      But jargon aside, I think you're correct. Google people have their blind spots, but all in all they're pretty smart, and I find it hard to believe that this release of Chrome was meant to to grab any significant market share. Too many functional limitations.

      If you go by the emphasis of the comic book [google.com], this version of Chrome is mostly about contributing to the open source browser community, and getting that community to rethink some of its strategies. And that actually makes sense. My only question is whether there will ever be a more serious version that will actually compete with other browsers. I think, probably not, but I'd be very happy to be wrong.

  • Now we know (Score:5, Funny)

    by ndansmith (582590) on Monday October 13, @12:25PM (#25357027) Homepage

    Now we know how long Slashdot users can stand to browse the internet without AdBlock.

  • Just don't need another browser (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xaosflux (917784) on Monday October 13, @12:25PM (#25357029) Homepage

    With all the options available today, there's just not a need for another browser right now. For most that don't want to use whatever their default browser is, they use FireFox. Firefox also had a lot more grass-roots promotion in the earlier days, that does not appear to be prevalent with Chrome.

  • Come on is this a surprise? I've downloaded Chrome, I've used it for a little bit of time and then gone back to Firefox as its got the plug-ins and other bits that I use everyday. When Chrome becomes a full product and has the plug-ins that I need then I'd consider switching, but for now its just something I'll fire up when testing my web code and then use that open window for some browsing because I'm too lazy to switch to another window.

    Hell personally I'm shocked they beat 1% of people, I'm stunned that 1% of people cared enough to download a new browser.

  • I guess I'm one of the 1.5 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Derek Loev (1050412) on Monday October 13, @12:29PM (#25357115)
    I downloaded it a couple days after it was released and although it is rough around the edges I've grown to like it a lot. The history search function is really nice and the fact that it takes about a second to launch compared to the 10 seconds for Firefox (at least for me, this is probably out of the ordinary) is a real bonus.
    But honestly, this seems entirely standard. Of course it's going to start off with a surge of popularity and then lose a little momentum. This doesn't mean Google has "dropped the ball", it means that people are acting quite normally. It may have been a mistake for Google to release Chrome before all the kinks were worked out (mine has crashed a couple times); however, I don't think this decline in percentage was anything that wasn't expected -- 1.5% is still a hell of a lot of people.

  • Stability (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hob42 (41735) <jupo42 AT gmail DOT com> on Monday October 13, @12:30PM (#25357131) Homepage Journal

    I've been giving Chrome a try myself, but my wife and my kids all still use FF or IE. I like that it takes up less screen realestate for tabs and so forth, and the history-homepage thingy is useful to me.

    I'd be happier with Chrome if it weren't for it's habit of getting hung up on Flash sites and bringing the whole OS to a screeching halt - sites that work fine in Firefox.

  • Loyal Users (Score:5, Interesting)

    by epdp14 (1318641) on Monday October 13, @12:38PM (#25357301)
    It seems to me that the pool of users that Chrome is seeking to draw from has already been taken by the likes of Firefox and Opera. And, unfortunately for Chrome, fans of Firefox and Opera are violently loyal customers. Even if Chrome supported addons I would have a hard time giving up my Firefox.

  • No Opera? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CastrTroy (595695) on Monday October 13, @12:42PM (#25357379) Homepage
    I find it surprising that Opera is still behind Chrome. I'm personally a Firefox user, but I really thought that Opera was more prevalent, especially on Slashdot. I guess the few Opera users there are, are just really vocal when it comes to promoting their browser.

  • My reasons for not switching full time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by edmicman (830206) on Monday October 13, @12:49PM (#25357519) Homepage Journal
    So far...
    *No Linux version yet - can't use it at home on Ubuntu without sloppy hacks
    *No find-as-you-type - I didn't realize how much I used this in FF until it's not there
    *No AdBlock Plus - I determined this to be my only real must-have FF extension. There are a few others I really really like, but I can get away without them for the most part.
    *Lack of extensions in general.

    On top of those, I think it's a novel new browser, has some good things, but there's a lack of transparency, too. At least with Firefox, I can view their Bugzilla, check out progress on Mozillazine, and feel like I'm seeing some progress and idea of where things are and where they are going. So Google has said they'll support addons and extensions. It's open source so people can hack it if they want. Well....where are they on supporting extensions? Where's the community building on the source? When is the estimated release of a more final version rather than something that really seems more like a technology preview demo?

    That said, I'm having problems with the Minefield pre beta (FF 3.1) today, and am actually thinking of trying Chrome as my default for the day to see how I fare. Crazy.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 SourceForge, Inc.