Out of the world’s total population of around 7.4 billion, 3.5 billion (approx. 47%) people are having an internet connection today. Among these internet users, Google Chrome has been the most popular web browser. Google announced that Chrome has reached a new milestone of 2 billion downloads between desktop and mobile. However, this figure states the number of installs, which doesn’t necessarily means that all of it is being actively used. Also, a single user can have the browser installed in several devices. In April, Google had announced that there were 1 billion active Chrome users.
Google Chrome is Leading the Browser Market
Google Chrome was launched in September 2008 for Windows, but has been available for different major operating systems, and even comes pre-installed in many Android smartphones and Google’s apps suite. Out of all the other web browsers available, Chrome is leading in terms of market share with a significant 54.46%, followed by Internet Explorer with 16.7% and Safari with 10.31%. Interestingly, Google Chrome has widened the gap in the last 10 months only. In January, the browser market share scenario was extremely different for Chrome and Internet Explorer as Chrome was leading with a mere 3.83% margin at 36.61% share. Mostly, the users of Internet Explorer have migrated to Google Chrome since the change in the share of other browsers has been more or less same since January.
Top Browser Share Trend
December, 2015 to October, 2016
Month | Chrome | Internet Explorer | Safari | Firefox | Microsoft Edge | Other |
December, 2015 | 34.33% | 35.29% | 12.23% | 9.28% | 2.15% | 6.72% |
January, 2016 | 36.61% | 32.78% | 12.26% | 8.56% | 2.33% | 7.46% |
February, 2016 | 38.06% | 30.52% | 12.24% | 8.75% | 2.98% | 7.45% |
March, 2016 | 40.79% | 28.00% | 12.92% | 7.59% | 3.17% | 7.53% |
April, 2016 | 44.10% | 25.37% | 12.46% | 6.92% | 3.40% | 7.76% |
May, 2016 | 50.29% | 23.43% | 10.62% | 6.21% | 3.65% | 5.81% |
June, 2016 | 49.41% | 23.37% | 10.95% | 5.91% | 3.98% | 6.39% |
July, 2016 | 51.04% | 21.76% | 11.12% | 6.00% | 3.91% | 6.18% |
August, 2016 | 53.32% | 19.85% | 11.02% | 5.61% | 3.82% | 6.39% |
September, 2016 | 54.08% | 17.70% | 10.94% | 6.36% | 3.61% | 7.31% |
October, 2016 | 54.46% | 16.70% | 10.31% | 8.04% | 3.82% | 6.67% |
Chrome’s Features Gives it an Edge Over its Competitors
Over the period, it has gained immense popularity among the users due to its advantages over other browsers. Some of these advantages are as follows:
- It is extremely fast and provides a great and easy browsing experience compared to its competitors. It can perform with high speed even on slow connection speed.
- Google Chrome never crashes, even when multiple tabs are open which uses a high amount of memory in the system.
- The browser has a very clean and neat design for a smooth user experience.
- Controlling and managing tabs are very convenient. There are shortcuts for new tab (Ctrl+T) and new window (Ctrl+N). Tabs can also be re-arranged and even dragged to new window or back to old window with a simple click.
- There is an incognito mode (Ctrl+Shift+N) for private sessions which never reveals users’ privacy over the internet connection.
Moreover, Google works constantly to make Chrome a safe and a secure browser for the users. It has many safety features like anti-phishing capability, one button setting resets, forced file saves before launching, moniker handling, and MIME content-type sniffing (which helps the thwart attempts to fool the browser into downloading malicious content).
One of the biggest reasons that have given Google Chrome edge over other browsers is mobile devices. Considering the fact that over 80% of the smartphone market is powered by Android, and Chrome browser comes pre-installed on Android devices, the dominance of Chrome is quite obvious.
According to a report by StatCounter, use of a browser on mobile devices has exceeded PC browsing worldwide, for the first time this month. Usage on mobile and tablet devices reached at 51.3% compared to desktop at 48.7%. No wonder Google is pushing the mobile web. Google even launched a tool for small businesses which facilitates testing of a website across devices.
Google is working restlessly to make all its products popular in the market. The dominance of Google’s products and services on the Internet can be understood with this one simple stat: Google has eight products which have more than 1 billion users, namely, Gmail, Maps, Search, YouTube, Google Play Store, Android and Chrome.
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The world’s population went over 8 billion in 1999. Nothing has changed since then. The estimated world population is now around 9.2 billion. China now allows two children for every couple and Malaysia and India still have runaway growth. Mexico is also still growing at an alarming rate and soon as Trump builds the Wall, there won’t be any safety valve for them with illegal emigrants.
I have a suggestion for Google. Keep your free browser with all the spy and malware, but also offer a paid browser, perhaps $29.99 a year free from tracking and habit buying software. Basically keep it clean in return for an annual payment. I would like to be first to do this if you will stop sharing my internet actions with dozens of tracking sites. If not I will begin using Tor and Chromium and uninstall Chrome.