Minimalist Geek

Matt Cutts, a huge fan of Chrome, has just released his own website Google Analytics statistics to show that Chrome’s share of his website visitors has climbed. This on the first anniversary of Chrome.

He doesn’t of course base himself on those statistics to say Chrome’s market share is increasing, but quotes figures from Net Applications, StatCounter, and Clicky. They all put Chrome’s share around 3.5%. That’s all good and positive. More competition always leads to better products in the end.

However, I do not agree with Matt Cutts that “That’s pretty good for 12 months”. Why so? Well the Google homepage happens to be one of the most visited sites on the internet, not counting all the other domains, sub-domains, services, and of course YouTube.

Chrome was heavily promoted on these websites and yet after a year only 3.5% of people use it. I personally use Firefox, but do not consider myself a fanboy, in the sense that if something much better pops up I would switch without hesitation.

But it must be said that Firefox have managed the highly improbable with their web browser. Being the underdog at a time when Internet Explorer reigned supreme with over 85% share they steadily ate more of the pie to now being the dominant player putting Internet Explorer in second place.

I agree with Matt Cutts that Chrome is helping drive innovation, such as private browsing and un/dockable tabs, not to mention better speed and secure browsing. But saying 3.5% share is pretty good after a whole year of Google promotion (read millions of visitors) could have only been said by a fanboy