Chrome clearly shows little intent of slowing down. Ars Technica made an even more readable graph that sums up the evolution of these browsers in the last month (see below). Should other browsers be worried? I’d say yes. Safari keeps its position, and has little interest in growing. It shares its engine with Google Chrome, and Chrome’s growth should not tamper any of Apple’s plans. It’s even a good thing for them. One in ten users are now browsing with webkit browsers, which means that webmasters cannot go without testing their websites against it. Safari users can only see their browsing experience improve. Opera, however, does not seem to profit from its victory against Microsoft in the European courts and is even losing market-share. I’m not a fan of Opera. The browser feels like something in between Chrome and Firefox to me, without enough clear advantages to stand out from either. I do believe that it’s underrated however, and it’s a shame that it doesn’t succeed because it is an innovating browser in all respects. Firefox still stands in second place, which makes it the most powerful browser in my opinion. Internet Explorer is in first place because it is pre-installed on many systems, but almost nobody uses it “intentionally”. That is why so many versions of Internet Explorer co-exist. IE 6 is still used after all these years! The big looser it still IE. Microsoft is clearly loosing its market-share to Google. The people at Redmond know this, and they are acting upon it. IE had made a lot of progress in these last two versions to catch up on other browsers. Unfortunately, it still has a very bad reputation which makes most of its progress go unnoticed. Microsoft’s noisy announcement about complying to the H.264 “standard” (which isn’t truly one) are probably part of a strategy to reconquer that reputation over time.

Will Chrome continue to grow?

Chrome’s market-share makes it notable, but if it were not for its rapid growth, it wouldn’t be a force to be reckoned. Chrome makes the news because it is the fastest growing browser, but if that grow was to be tampered it would simply become uninteresting in commercial terms. Firefox still represents the anti-IE resistance, the fight against Microsoft domination of the web experience (which is admittedly already dead, if not symbolically at least de facto).

If you look at the numbers closely, you can already see Chrome’s numbers slacking. Chrome is still set to grow consequently, but it is not going to be the world’s biggest browser. It is too early to see where Chrome will stop, but my wild guess would be somewhere near 20%, maybe a bit higher. A more intriguing question is where IE is going to stop decreasing. When Chrome has stopped its ascent? It may be still to early to tell.

What does that mean?

Numbers may be meaningless without analysis, but analysis is meaningless if it just explains numbers. What’s really important to us is the effect that Chrome will have on the future of the web. Is Google Chrome really different from other browsers?

The clue’s in the name. Chrome’s user interface (UI) was designed with one thing in mind: minimizing “chrome”. Minimizing the ” visible graphical interface features” of the application. This means that Chrome’s goal is not the browser’s features, but the disappearance of the browser as such. Google wants to pull attention away from the browser and towards web applications, its bread and butter. Google is the first company to design a browser with that as a primary objective, and it sells. Why? Because when we browse, we want to see the web, not the browser itself.

Chrome’s innovations in terms of UI—as well as the omni-bar and other new features—are welcome. They bring a fresh view of existing interface problems, and they are already being imitated by the future Firefox 4 and the current KDE SC 4.4 desktop.

I’m glad for Google Chrome. It’s an innovating browser that puts the web before anything else. I’m not overly convinced, and the main reason I’m using Chromium right now is because I’m on a netbook. Lack of proper integration (particularly on Linux) makes the user experience somewhat lacking. I’m disappointed by this point. Integration to the windows desktop is not in Apple’s interest because they want to attract users to their own OS, but Google should be above that. Of course, things will be clearer when Chrome OS will be officially released on Google’s partner netbooks. Until then, we can only speculate on Google’s strategy.

Here’s a light-hearted demonstration of the latest Chrome 5.0′s speed by Google. Have fun!

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According to you, how much market-share will the Google Chrome Browser achieve in 2015? (in %)customer surveys

I’ve been a fan of Google quite early on. It is one of these rare companies that seems to be constantly innovating, going forward and finding new ways to become even more useful (and make more money). I’ve been waiting for a Google OS for quite some time, and even though I feel it won’t be my cup of tea, I’m still excited to see how it will turn out to be. I was able to try out their browser as soon as it was released to the public, but I didn’t catch on instantly. The interface didn’t integrate well (with Windows XP), it seemed overly simplistic, and I missed my beloved icons. I saw no reason to switch.

What’s up with Google Chrome?

I had experienced love at first sight when I finally received that invitation for Gmail; not when I used Chrome for the first time. Chrome was made up of some good ideas, one idea that I even found revolutionary, but I could live without it. Then it grew on me. Chrome is like that on a lot of people. They don’t see it as “the best thing ever” but keep it because it’s stress-free and uncumbersome. After some time, you don’t want to go back.

Google released Chrome stating that is was a new, innovative browser that intended to remove the browser’s “chrome” (i.e. interface) in our lives so that we could fully experience the Internet (i.e. Google’s services). Overall, they have achieved that. The proof of it is that the Chrome browser is still growing, taking market-share whilst the others are getting ready to imitate it. Critics can attack Chrome from every angle, but numbers talk: Mashable stated all this in a clear simple sentence without leaving out the facts:

“Chrome grew from 5.22% to 5.61% (0.39%) over the course of February. Internet Explorer shrunk from 62.12% to 61.58% (0.54%), Firefox from 24.43% to 24.23% (0.2%), Safari from 4.53% to 4.45% (0.08%) and Opera from 2.38% to 2.35% (0.03%).”

Clicky provides us with a nice graph that summarizes all of this.

It is interesting to note that Chrome is the only browser still growing, and that at a constant rate. It is undeniable that Chrome is filling up space, and pushing all other browsers away. Of course, it’s important not to over-interpret the data. Chrome is getting bigger, and all other browsers are loosing market share, but that doesn’t meant that Chrome is going to eat us all or that everybody prefers Chrome. What it means is that Chrome still has more place to grow, and that some of the innovations it brought were useful: we needed Chrome, we were waiting for it.

Even better, they looked at their own data:

“Chrome use grew among Mashable readers from 12.68% to 14.8% — 2.12%. From that you can deduce that Chrome’s adoption is (unsurprisingly) moving faster among web and tech enthusiasts.”

While it’s not surprising to see that Chrome is growing at the expense of others, it’s relatively larger adoption by technophiles says a lot about them. Now, I generally imagine that geeks like me love configuring stuff. “Powerful” software is much more interesting than any quick-simple application for any IT-oriented person because it broadens your possibilities, but it actually seems that a large part of these technophiles actually prefer simpler worry-free applications. Even for their browser, the most used application on their machines. Of course, extensions may have played a large role in Google Chrome’s growth, but even with a very powerful extension system like the one Chrome uses now, it will never be nearly as customizable as Firefox is.

Will Google Chrome continue to grow?

Part of Google Chrome’s growth may be attributable to Google’s huge worldwide advertisement campaign on January, but Chrome seems to grow just as fast after all the billboards have disappeared. If Google’s browser is loosing momentum it is not visible yet. My bet is that there are many more people who would love to use chrome than people who use it already, and they will continue to join the clan.

Chrome is clearly a good web browser with still a lot of growth potential. As a part of Google’s strategy, its goal is probably to improve our access to the web, not only for its users, but for everyone who might use Google’s services. Google doesn’t really care if anyone uses Chrome per se, but its adoption means more people have a better access to its services. Chrome’s comparatively higher speed, reliability and adherance to web standards opens more possibilities to users, including the use of (Google’s) web applications. Chrome, and Chrome OS, are all part of Google’s main strategy: to make the web indespensable to our lives. The release of the Android 2.1 on Google’s and HTC’s Nexus One is another example of this. Beyond tight integration with Google’s Apps and services, the Nexus features a google search box that’s more accessible than the phone itself. Some time ago, the company released some applications for the PC platform, but mostly these seemed to be experiments of an Internet company trying to make the link between the web and the desktop seemless. Google doesn’t like our desktop, the early Chrome OS builds prove that. Chrome is the best way Google found to bring the web to our hands in the most seamless way possible. It’s good for them, and it’s good for us. The more people adopt it in the short run, the better webapps and SaaS can get. The better the web gets, the better our computing experience becomes. Thank you, Chrome.

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The problem, however, is always the same: should we prefer security of functionality? Google Chrome (and hence the Chromium project) had initially opted for a limited functionality browser with high security. The idea (as well as the fresh interface) encountered a mild success. It was a great victory for Google in this highly competetive market, but the whole projet bumped on a large share of the market–the power users–who are among the most inclined to try out new browsers and switch. Why? Because the majority of these “power users” have gotten used to extensions.

The extention system is Firefox’s greatest strength, and that for a cause! I use Firefox daily, and it’s the extentions, not the browser, that have me addicted. There are extentions for the spead-freaks, extentions for the lazy, extentions for the news-addicts, extentions for minimalist-lovers, extensions to enhance productivity, etc. Whoever you are, there is a (therorectical) customized Firefox for you. Chrome, however, with it’s simplified interface, was not only looked limited, but actually was less functional. Chrome may be faster than Firefox, but I’m still more efficient on the latter because I have various extentions that work in my stead (i.e. that check my emails, gather news from around the web, enhance webpages, etc.). Not Long ago, Google introduced themes for Chrome, making the browser slightly more personal, but still infinitely less configurable than Mozilla’s.

Of course, Google’s choice was not bad when they decided to build a simple, fast and secure browser instead of a bulky feature-complete one, but now they’re reaching a ceilingin user adoption. It’s very probable that the great majority of users would prefer Google Chrome over any other browser due to it’s simplicity. However, these users are not those who switch browsers, but rather those who don’t (think they) care. If the browser is to reach a wider audience, it must evolve.

Of course, the folks behind Chrome and Chromium are aware of that. Yesterday, Adam Barth posted an article about the security problem with plugins on the Chromium blog. His point is that there basically “two main security concerns: malicious extensions and “benign-but-buggy” extensions”. The first are essentially malware, but it is the second that’s truly dangerous. More extentions by thrid party developpers means more code. Google will lose control on the overall experience, but also over the code. Security threats will appear exponentially. Luckily, the same blog post gives us an idea of how these threats can be reduced (by clever restrictive policies and a good dose of hunting). I’d also like to add that exentions slow down the browser and often make the overall UI feel less consistent. If Chrome can bring us the power of plugins without losing it’s speed and overall security, It’ll land one step in front of it’s rivals.

You can download chrome here and the Chromium projects’ homepage can be found here. You can also get a preview several extensions for Google Chrome here.

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