Does Anyone Use Chrome?

Comments (Archived):

1. Yes. There is definitely Chrome traction amongst the early adopters. Too bad Mozilla and Google are not working more closely together. (The disqus plug-in keeps on getting better!)

   1. Yeah. What’s up with that? I get that goog likes webkit better. But at least they should have used mozilla’s extension framework

      1. From what i know, extensions are coming to Chrome in next 1-2 month. Mozilla extension framework is too much of a learning curve. I expect Chrome to have better getting started docs for devs.

         1. They’re already on the dev branch and there are a few useful ones. The best by far is AdSweep (http://adsweep.org/); it’s better than AdBlock in my opinion.

2. Interesting. Certainly my site sees far less traffic than what your figures are based on . . . but here they are:Browsers Past 12 Mos.56.48%IE719.28%IE811.67%IE6 7.75%Gecko(Firefox) 1.87%Unknown 1.82%Safari 0.64%Chrome 0.18%KHTML 0.17%IE 0.06%Opera9 0.04%Gecko 0.01%Opera1 0.01%Gecko(NS) 0.01%Gecko(Camino). . . as for OS . . .55.47%WinVista37.25%WinXP 4.12%MacOSX 1.50%Unknown 0.76%Linux 0.31%Win2000 0.26%WinNT 0.19%iPhone 0.06%Win2003 0.05%Win9x 0.01%WinNT4 0.01%Win

   1. My blog is designed for entrepreneurs and small biz owners instead of techies, and my breakdown goes like this:Browser:Internet Explorer 44.22%Firefox 42.12%Safari 7.24%Chrome 4.48%Opera 0.70%OS:Windows 83.18% Macintosh 13.39% Linux 2.37% iPhone 0.43% iPod 0.19% (not set) 0.16% Android 0.12%Clearly there’s a pretty big gap between the techies who read Fred’s blog and the business folks who read mine!My personal experience: I loved Chrome’s speed, but dumped it because Google toolbar doesn’t work on it (a total fail from GOOG, as far as I’m concerned.)-Erica

      1. Your readers aren’t that far from mine when you factor in that I’ve got a lot more mac users

3. I’ve been using Chrome since shortly after it launched. It was shit for a couple of months but it is amazing how much it has improved. Anyone using Gmail should give it a try since it absolutely screams for this app and with Gears you can do email offline.I also love the dedicated browser instances for Gmail, Calendar, etc.Extensions ecosystem is non-existent, but you can port over your Firefox profile (logins, bookmarks).It’s probably worth using it just for Gmail (w/ dedicated instance) and then use FF for browsing if you need the extensions.

   1. good advice Davethanks for iti do use gears in firefox for offline email which totally rocksi’ll try it in chromefred

      1. ugh. i just remembered that chrome doesn’t run on macs. there goes my idea of using it for google apps like gmail. i hope they bring out a mac version soon.

         1. There is a Chromium version, but you’d be a little (okay, a lot) disappointed if you tried it now. http://www.google.com/chrom…I don’t think it even has gears!

   2. That’s exactly what I do for the same reasons Dave

   3. My usage has been similar to this. In the early days it was just great for all of the Javascript heavy Google Apps (especially Reader, which seems to leak memory on most other browsers), but almost useless for everything else. Like so many other Google products it has got good fast (I hated Reader when it first launched, but when I went back a year later it was transformed). I now find myself using Chrome for almost everything, FF for the rare stuff that doesn’t work and IE for MSDN and Technet.Much as I’m liking Windows 7 on my Netbook, these days it seems to be little more than a substrate for running Chrome and TweetDeck.

   4. Interesting comment. It has me wondering if there isn’t a bigger play here. With GMAIL, Chrome OS, Chrome, Google Doc’s, Wave (coming soon to theaters near you), etc it appears that Google is shooting to where they think the puck is going. Not where it is. If a thin client, cloud computing netbook driven world is where things end up, Google will have one hell of an ecosystem putting them right in the middle of it all.

      1. I think you are right on.As an early practitioner of behavioral marketing, I’ve been watching Googleplay a similar game in advertising. They have amassed an amazing amount ofdata about users, more than most of the other players (like more formercompany) that got hammered for collecting and using behavioral data. NowGoogle has fully unleashed “interest based” advertising after years ofsaying “wink wink” that they were not looking at entering the “behavioral”space. They took the long view and positioned themselves well (a lamillions of Toolbars collecting full clickstream, DoubleClick asset, etc.)to fully leverage this data.The browser/OS are missing pieces to this data game (and will allow them togive away the software while MSFT tries to go after their core searchfranchise). As you say they will be in the middle of it all.

4. Also recall that Chrome uses WebKit as its rendering base, so Google has gone to war (if you’re into that analogy) with Apple, using Apple’s own weapons against it. However, to quote the webkit.org website:”WebKit is open source software with portions licensed under the LGPL and BSD licenses. Complete license and copyright information can be found within the code.”So theoretically Google will have to give (at least some of) their improvements back to the community.

   1. Google doesn’t seem to mind open sourcing client software. But they don’t seem to want to open source infrastructure software. Facebook open sourced their datastore (cassandra) but its not likely that goog would open source big table

      1. Goog wants to target business customers with AppEngine. And businesses hate open source. Risk, Policy……

5. …and now the plot thickens. I believe that this is incredibly good news for innovation and technology. Competition here will bring us all sorts of interesting features and capabilities.Although your readers probably skew toward the techy/early adopters, those numbers are still impressive – I didn’t expect IE to be this dominated.

   1. This is clearly a community with little love for msft

      1. I’m not totally sure why. Judge a product as a product. Companies are not meant to be your savior, although they can be altruistic. They are not people.I had to do my first real Powerpoint in years. I’m overwhelmingly happy with how good the most recent version of Powerpoint is. I’m a little font happy- but I was really impressed with my ability to do simple kernings (that’s adjusting the font spacing) very simply and easily no matter if I were on a Mac or on a PC. That’s impressive for something that is not meant to be a serious layout tool.

6. I’m one of those many 9%, I came to chrome from IE and I love it. Chrome is very stable, fast and just works very well, great UI. However it does have its bugs and glitches, mostly with third party plug-in’s and I’m not sure why Google has not integrated its google toolbar features into the browser.

7. Can you cross check how many of those 11,134 visits of Chrome came from GOOG? You recently spoke there so you may have a larger # of Chrome-user-followers from within GOOG. :)Personally I tried Chrome a while back, but gave up on it. I stick to FF and IE. Works for me.

   1. Interesting point. But I did my google talk more than a month ago

      1. As you say, “here’s the exact numbers for the past 30 days”. Your talk at GOOG was in mid-may. So, if this point is even remotely correlated, then all that the GOOG chrome users had to do was to bookmark your blog in their chrome browser on the day of your talk and then visit it a couple of times since. The only way to get some clarification is to check the number of Chrome user visits to your site from April to May.

         1. Good point

8. I use Chrome. I love it. I think the concept of ‘no home page’ is just cool and I appreciate it as a design element and it seems to me to be quicker than Firefox. I find it more intuitive than Firefox oddly. And I’m sure Firefox is doing this but it was the first time I’d seen the very obvious step of combining the search bar with the URL bar.

   1. Your making me want to switch. I might start using chrome for web apps like gmail, etc and firefox for browsing. I like the idea of using two browsers for a while. But I can’t go without my FF extenstions

      1. just realized i can’t switch because chrome is not available on macs

         1. If you are a multitasker (i.e. keep many tabs open), Chrome is definitely the way to go. It’s much faster than FF (even with AdBlockPlus on) and the multi-process architecture is awesome. Some sites used to significantly slow down and freeze FF for me, but with Chrome, you can kill individual tabs or plugins (i.e. Shockwave) without having to close down your entire session.I hope it comes out for macs soon.

         2. It is if you are willing to live on the edge. Some versions may not work very well but the one I am using works like a champ.There’s no Flash support right now but I can always hop back to FF for that. Chrome works very nicely as a second browser.Get it here. http://build.chromium.org/b…

         3. How do you make a browser that doesn’t work on Mac?

9. The surprising number is Safari really. Considering that a lot of people use Firefox even on Apple, that is a high number. Safari same as IE, wow!

   1. We use FF on mac in our home with the exception of my middle child emily who prefers safari

10. BTW, just noticed that Disqus added OpenID login. They are really getting better all the time as a commenting tool. You must be pleased.

    1. I am. And disqus 3.0 is coming before the end of the summer. That’s going to be a whole new ballgame

11. Hmmm, I have Chrome installed in the Windows XP instance of VMWare Fusion running on my Mac and I never use it. Whenever I see “install base” stats of browsers or Flash reported by folks in the high-tech or high-finance world, I’m always skeptical. I immediately compare them with the stats from the golf course website I manage (pasatiempo.com) which reports:IE: 62%Firefox: 22%Safari: 13%Chrome: 2%All Others: 1%

    1. pasatiempo?that is one of my favorite golf courses in the worldlast time i played it, i was on fire on the back nine and played the last four holes in one under.

       1. Pasatiempo is an amazing course. Last time I played it, it kicked my butt.

       2. Yes, Pasatiempo is an amazing course. Becoming a shareholder/member there is one of the best choices I’ve made. Playing the last four holes in one under is quite an accomplishment — way to go. I can’t say that I’ve done that, but it certainly seems that anytime I’ve had a strong finish like that it is invariably combined with a terrible score on the front! That’s golf. 🙂

          1. I shot 50 on the front that day. I think I went 50/40

       3. Fred, I didn’t see you as a golfer. I guess that is why my mom said never judge a book by it’s cover.

    2. I was wondering how strong the early adopter factor was affecting Fred’s results. It’s interesting to see the results of your golf course website as it is more likely to be representative of the middle ground. Lovely looking course, which is walkable too, that’s going on my wish list !I use Firefox, Chrome and IE in that order, I won’t move to Chrome as my main browser until it supports feedly. I work in techMy wife on the other hand uses the IE that was bundled on her laptop. If I installed another browser on her machine and showed her it was there the next time she wanted to get on the net she would click on the IE shortcut. My wife’s a Phys Ed teacher, RSS and firefox extensions mean absolutely nada to her….

       1. Hehe I had that problem with my mom. Solution? After explaining to her Chrome was better, I deleted the IE shortcut and put a Chrome one up there with an IE picture instead. Worked like a charm and she actually noticed a difference in speed!

       2. This I think is the most relevant point. It is too easy to think the rest of the world is as plugged in to Internet technology as we are. The truth is, my wife and kids at that matter are like yours. They browse. Plugins, extensions, RSS etc. mean nothing to them. They just want to be on the web.

    3. I’m associated with a known mass market site that gets millions of visitors per day, I just ran a report for 1st week of July.MS: 59%Firefox/Mozilla: 30.6%Safari: 3.8%Google: 3.2%Other: 3.0%Friend of mine runs a geek early adopter like blog and she gets quite similar to avc.com.

12. I use Chrome. I switched to it full-time 4 months ago. It is the only browser I use.

13. I used Chrome for two months as my primary browser. Problem is, it simply has too many glitches Flash/java plugins don’t consistently work as they should . Plus, some pages do not load/render at all. Finally, I miss the extensions that I have with Firefox.What I DO like with Chrome is the speed, obviously due to webkit’s faster page rendering…but it also takes longer for Firefox to “start up” which I believe is attributed to the XUL language its based on.Also, each tab having its own process is a good thing..only if I could figure out which process to terminate when the tab crashes (I think Chrome has its own tab process manager somewhere)The million dollar question for the Google Chrome OS is..how is it going to get hardware/software to work together flawlessly? Microsoft has enough trouble doing this already. Without a good solution to this, their new OS will simply be regarded as another linux distribution.. not for the mainstream.

14. I posted a similar analysis of 3 blogs that I had access to for statistics and found that for my tech/productivity blog, Enquiring Mimes, Chrome had an almost 25% share.Pointer to blog entryhttp://enquiringmimes.com/w…

15. You are right about Firefox extension. I’m using Chrome since it lunched, and really satisfy with speed. But i’m still using Firefox for firebug extension. Extension is serious factor for people to switch from Firefox.But anyway, this’s true only for tech savvy. The average people still use IE a lot, my website (real estate searching focused on Thais) is seeing 80%+ IE user.

    1. Those IE people don’t know what they are missing!

16. It’s also wOrth noting that chrome appeals to some the same types of people as macs, but so far the only chrome you can run on mac is the early development builds. When chrome has a real mac release, a lot of mac users will use it.

    1. Right. Like me

17. So how does your analytics count RSS readers? Are they simply left out of the these numbers? If you read avc.com on Google Reader through Safari what browser does that count for?

    1. I believe google analytics is not counting my rss readers unless they click trough to avc.com

18. Shouldn’t this analysis exclude Mac users since we don’t have Chrome (excluding the very slow and buggy development release)? Mac users are only contributing to the denominator in the 9% chrome statistic.The “browser and OS report” in google analytics lists visits “by browser by OS”. Filtering for “Windows” would exclude Mac from the numerator and denominator.On our site, http://www.mvmpartners.com, for example, Chrome is 7.5% of all visits, but 9% of Windows only visits.I’d bet that chrome is closer to 11% or 12% of AVC.com’s Windows users since Mac probably represents 20% of visitors.

    1. Great point.I created custom segments for windows and mac users. Here’s some additional statsChrome is 15pcnt of the windows users who visit this blog, firefox is 51pcnt, and IE is 32pcntFor mac users who visit this blog, FF and safari are tied at 49pcnt and everything else is noiseThis is a firefox crowd but safari is big for mac users and I bet chrome will be big among windows users. Frankly, it already is

       1. Wow, Chrome at 15% of windows visitors is huge. Chrome wasn’t even released in beta until September of last year.

19. i believe Chrome OS will aid in realizing the inevitable high speed future of the internet – once we have 50mbps+ all around us, there will not be many apps that still require “desktop computing power” will there?!?!

20. The final success of Chrome is not important for Google. What’s important is the threat and the availability of a fast browser.Before Chrome, all browsers were much slower for Java, and all that AJAX that Google is using in apps made the Google products look slow. Because of Chrome, all the other browsers Firefox, Safari, IE optimized for Java use. Moreover, now you can do more stuff with AJAX :)Google’s apps live in the cloud and the existence of a fast browser is imperative. Chrome being that browser is not relevant.

    1. Google’s apps live in the cloud and the existence of a fast browser is imperative. Chrome being that browser is not relevant.Very true.

    2. That’s the value of competition. Great point

21. Chrome is the best. I’ve been using it since Day 1 — everything else might as well be a Motorola StarTAC.I keep the blue E in my ‘unused icons’ folder on my desktop, and only use Firefox when there’s an update that needs to be downloaded.

22. As some have said, the browser percentages will obviously depend a fair bit on the nature of the site. I suspect you have a higher than average number of digerati/tech-savvy folks visiting your blog (and with Firefox being your top browser, that proves that IMHO). Sadly, IE still wins on very broadly appealing sites. At DealBase (hotel deals), we have a higher level of traffic, but it’s over a very wide range of users. Chrome sits in 4th for us as well, but only at 2%.Granted the Fake Steve article is of course a lot of fun, but funnily enough Chrome is of course related to Safari, so that’s a bit funny. My hope is that Chrome actually does help erode IE. I don’t use it more than to test our site with it, but I would like to think that with Google’s clout, that maybe it can help open more people’s eyes to something other than IE (for the folks that would otherwise essentially not pay attention to, or not really understand that there are other browsers). We’ll see. Google isn’t yet promoting it, but maybe once it’s out of beta (hmm, hopefully not as long as Gmail 😉 they will…

23. I love that google reader added a “install Google Chrome” ad to your post. I have Chrome installed but I usually only use different browsers than Firefox if I’m trying to do different things at the same time (have Firefox open for keeping in touch like e-mail, fb, twitter…IE for the work stuff… Chrome for dawdling like tumblr, reader).Thanks for writing Fred!

24. Fred, check this “What is a Browser?” – random people on Times Square answering the question.http://bit.ly/131mzn

25. Yep, love Chrome and have been using it and Chromium since very early on. Just got too tired of the Firefox bloat. Only thing I missed was the Better Gmail extension for Firefox, but once Google finally improved Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts enough, I pretty much dropped Firefox altogether.FF has actually dropped to #3 for me since IE8 came out — both of them still do a good job with RSS/XML, unlike Chrome. I do notice a recent annoying problem with Chrome, where on YouTube I often find myself refreshing the browser over and over before controls will appear on the video so that it can be played. (Still, it was less annoying than having to restart Firefox because it would invariably get to a point where it would only play the first couple of seconds of any video.)That said, in the near-term, I’ll still always keep Firefox on my machine (Portable Apps version) for the first-rate Firebug extension.

    1. I never have these problems with Firefox that I see from some people. I speculate because I’m religious about NOT using extensions because they slow things down. I have like two critical ones installed (IE Tab and Fire FTP).

26. I use Chrome occasionally and I find it faster than IE, Firefox and Safari. But Chrome has problem displaying layout of some sites. So, my guess is it not fully compliant. I also like the bookmarking in chrome. As I am used to browsers with standard windows menus, the menuless interface of Chrome sometime feels awkward.

27. I have to say — Fred, you said this before in comments a while ago, and I said I thought it would be Android, not Chrome. I’ll never doubt you again. :)That being said, I’m skeptical about this move from Google. I think it’s cool. I love competition. Competition from MacOS has made Windows 7 as great as it is.What I’m skeptical about is the ability of web apps — even with HTML 5 — to be good enough to replace the desktop computing experience any time in the next five to ten years.Here’s some of the things that a Chrome OS computer couldn’t do:1. iTunes?2. How will devices work? Like my iPod, my web cam or scanner? How long will it take for web protocols to be built to handle these?3. How will storage work? Do I have local storage? Can I back it up? Will I be able to surf my files, drag and drop them into e-mails, etc? (I can’t do this today in Gmail.)4. Graphics programs like Photoshop and Illustrator?5. Games with intense graphics?Part of this is just unanswered questions, but I’m just skeptical that a web-apps only OS will do the trick until 10 years from now when web protocols could be sophisticated enough to do all of this.Remember, Apple started out with the iPhone as web-apps-only but shifted to native apps because the platform just wasn’t powerful enough.

    1. The anti-Chromers are worse than the fan boys.1. There will be iTunes or something similar.2. They will all work fine.3. Yes, you will have storage. Similar but more capable than iPhone/Android.4. Are you kidding?5. See iPhone.

       1. Thanks for your flippant reply, but seriously now. I’m not even close to anti-Chrome. I use it (albeit as my secondary browser) after Firefox.1. Something similar isn’t good enough. I have an iPod.2. Glad to hear. What HTML tags will I write to do that? Is there a <scan> tag in HTML 5?3. This I believe. Is it accessible by a web app beyond a Browse / Upload button? Is that in HTML 5?4. No, I’m not. Please point me to the native web app that does Photoshop or Illustrator.5. Please point me to the native web app that does intense gaming graphics. The iPhone apps are not native web apps.I’m not offended, but I was looking for a serious answer. I think Google can do this, even with native web apps. I just think it will take 10 years and HTML 8, but perhaps they can bridge with a mix of Flash, Air, and other extra technologies that aren’t pure web apps?

       2. Just saw on VentureBeat that Google is doing a special API called O3D where HTML apps can do intense graphics in the browser. So it looks like #4 and #5 could potentially work if this scales enough to incent them to port the software to the new platform.http://deals.venturebeat.co…

          1. Good points, but, in fact, all of them can be solved.1. Lala.com, but more practically, I’m sure apple will come out with an online version.2. Google never excluded having connections to outside devices, but I don’t think that’s what you were saying. I’m sure Google could build in an interface for using your devices like local storage, but it wouldn’t, probably, be as competent. I don’t know, it seems like transferring of files is the only reason to plug in, which would probably be done outside of the browser. Why would you connect your ipod to listen to it if all of your music is online? This is probably the point which will take the most problem-solving.3. There will probably be local and online storage (like RAID 1 but one of the HDDs is a server). This would be awesome, and is likely because they say in the blog post “They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files”. Also, the drag and drop is, almost surely, what will be used because this was demonstrated during the Google Wave unveiling. Definitely possible.4. Refer to: http://lifehacker.com/53091…. I don’t use any of these myself, but only because I don’t have much need to edit images (not much of a picture guy). So yeah, definitely possible.5. Ah yes, I was going to refer you to O3D! It will take a lot of resources, but netbooks aren’t gaming machines now. Desktops definitely have potential if developers start using this. Here are some samples: http://code.google.com/apis….I will definitely use Google Chrome OS on even my relatively powerful (T9300 processor, 4GB RAM) laptop. I can use it with a 64-bit processor, right? Hopefully it is hugely successful!

28. A site i run gets mainly daytime office based traffic and so is very high on IE but chrome is creeping up1. Internet Explorer 67.44% 2. Firefox 23.38% 3. Safari 6.45% 4. Chrome 2.45%I suspect you get a lot of traffic from Google offices where use of Chrome will be mandatory.Chrome is faster but I hate the Chrome bookmarks system and am not keen on the bright design. The new Safari 4 front page is like some bad Flash developers 3d portfolio site, i thought that was a bad sign of what would happen to Apple once Jobs eventually leaves

29. I like Chrome, because it’s just quick and it feels safer than IE. But I like OS X even more, which is the reason why I don’t use Chrome.

30. Possibly no way to answer this, but is the change in usage of browser over three years an indication that your then-existing community has changed, or that the larger/different community was using a different browser when we arrived here? A clumsy way of saying that maybe the community changed in size or make-up, rather than (or maybe as well as) the existing community changing its browser …

31. FSJ was absolutely hillarious, yet that was the one point where he clearly lost it. Chrome is amazing for any AJAX/JS heavy sites: i.e. most of web 2.0. going back to FF from Chrome really, noticeably feels “slow”. just like going back to IE few years ago. FF probably better for mainstream user right now, yet Chrome is certainly loved among techies.

32. I use Chrome only as I program my site. I build my site using Firefox – then check it in Safri, IE and Chrome – to see how it looks and make sure that it works across all platforms.Would rather see a common platform for all browsers.Regarding competing with Microsoft – I am a firm beleiver in choice for consumers. I think comeptition increases innovation and reduced costs to consumers. Kind of looking forward to seeing how Microsoft reacts – especailly without Bill Gates at the healm.

33. The Google Chrome is a simplified and extremely fast Internet browser.I still prefer Safari on the mac but Chrome on the PC.If the forthcoming Google OS is anything like the browser I’ll be using that as well.

34. Not many people (outside the circle of people who read this blog) know what a browser actually is:http://googlesystem.blogspo…Personally I was a hard core firefox user, but the more extensions I added the slower it performed. So for the most part now I use Chrome for my personal/need for speed browsing, and use Firefox when I’m doing research etc. Keep both running throughout the day.

35. I’m not a techie and neither are most of the people I know, so I don’t understand the big deal. My question is what’s the benefit of firefox or safari or even chrome over ie?Somebody please tell me!

36. Google’s reliance on web advertising gives it a massive conflict of interest w. Chrome as a browser. I played with Chrome, but can’t deal with losing Ad Block Plus. Sorry, but I am too addicted to de-crapifying web sites by stripping out most of the ads. And Google is too reliant on selling ads…

    1. Adsweep.org is your solution! But you have to be on the dev branch to use it.

37. I use Chrome a majority of the time, but I also have Firefox open for things that require extensions. I like Chrome, because it is extremely fast, stable and the UI is great for browsing (real estate!), that said I don’t believe Google could add extensions without killing both performance and security on Windows. Just a guess, but I’m sure the Chrome OS will support extensions before than Chrome on Windows.The one piece of the Google Chrome OS news that has been over looked is the role Google Chrome OS, running on cheap netbook, effect on bring cloud computing to developing countries such as Brazil, Russia, India and China. Bringing the Google brand to a massively under served segment of the global population. Microsoft has been fighting piracy of it’s software in developing countries, now I guess that strategy will be changed.

38. Agreed on Firefox extensions- and I believe that’s the barrier to switch.My browser is like my MySpace profile was a few years ago. You spend all of this time customizing it, sort of “pimping out your browser”. It makes it difficult to leave.

39. I started using Chrome several months ago and haven’t looked back because it’s fast and simple. The overwhelming majority of people I have recommended it to have made it their primary browser. While this is by no means quantitative, qualitatively my expectation is that it will capture market share at an exponential rate.

40. Chrome already support extensions in its developer’s version, i believe that by the end of this year or beggining of the next, extensions will be avaiable into stable versions and then a lot of developers will probably port their FF extensions to Chrome.

    1. That will be big

41. I use Chrome as a second browser. Simply put, Firefox is my productivity suite while Chrome is my media player. I email, write and read on FF and at the same time watch videos and/or listen to music on Chrome, so that these heavier duty tasks won’t increase FF’s load and risk crashing it, then I might lose my edits.I haven’t fully switched over to Chrome mainly due to most add-ons I use on FF are not available on Chrome yet. Otherwise, I would have swapped their roles.

42. Most comments appear to be users of PC/Macs citing their Chrome vs. FF usage. And using PC/Mac-based adoption data as basis for Chrome OS’ success seems flawed, here’s why: PC/Macs offer choice of browser via download/install, but Chrome OS’ distribution will be device-driven (not download-driven). If device (OEM) adoption happens, then “choice” is limited (or better-put, requires an extra step). So I’m not sure that PC/Mac usage of Chrome (the browser) is a useful, directional guide to Chrome OS’ success or relevance.Android will turn two years old in November of this year, and by that time, Android has said publicly that 18 OEM devices will be shipping. Why any OEM not tied to a native OS (eg, Symbian, iPhone or BlackBerry) would choose Java over Android at this point is a mystery to me — MOT, Samsung, LG, HTC and others will drive the worldwide unit shipments of where the real Android adoption will come from.And so my telltale barometer will be if Acer, Asus or another ‘netbook tiger’ will come forth with an announced device, or perhaps Dell/HP will leap first. In other words, who will be the ‘HTC of Chrome OS?’Full disclosure: I keep Chrome and FF open all day; each is good at different things. Reading and searching is best within Chrome, while streaming and messaging I prefer to do in FF — that’s just evolved as habit over several months.

43. I don’t know if this is typical of your blog readers or not — I use both Firefox and Chrome.Firefox is my primary browser for browsing the web for work purpose.I use Chrome when I need to run Google docs, ad sense, or any other google application. I no longer own any personal copy of Microsoft Office applications — for what I need to do, Google App is good enough. It also lets me to export documents to PDF and other formats. I just did an experiment — I created a small ebook using Google doc, have people reviewed it using goole app, export it to PDF, and have it for sales on scribd.com.It’s going to take some time for large enterprises to adopt Chrome+Google App. But, for SMBs and entrepreneurs, Chrome OS + Chrome Browser + Google App is a very viable and affordable solution.I don’t know if this is in google’s plan, but I think they should also add some simple project management features to Google apps — it’d be a killer feature for small team collaborations — — e.g. something similar to what 37signals’ base camp.

    1. This is how I work now too. No desktop appsBut I don’t have chrome on my macWhen I do, it will be great

44. Chrome is a screamer of a browser, even compared to FF 3.5I sacrificed greater utility (addons) for speed and rarely go back. My first foray into Chrome had me swapping back to FF. But recent page loading tests (side by side at home) cause me to irrevocably switch.Surprised that there’s no chrome on mac, it’s a unix OS should be easier than a windows port.

45. I’m unhappy with Chrome- I was testing it, because one of my friends from Hillel has it up on facebook how much she liked it (Lovely Comp Sci student), so I thought, hey why not.I ran for a few days. Not exclusively, sometiems alone, sometimes with both IE and firefox hanging around.As I read these comments I recognize something very important: We are “post-browser,” which is why I am unhappy. It’s like why I can’t choose a computer- the browser is actually becoming in some ways closer to an OS. It run web based applications, which are essentially programs, instead of locally based programs. And like many people- I do many things that need to satisfy many needs, and as a result I can’t get a perfect OS nor a perfect browser.It worked out that before you started to write this post I decided to start a series about using tools, especially internet tools, and design implementation. How to think about thinking on the web and in other locations, because of issues like this that keep popping up in my life.

46. When on a PC, I use Chrome almost exclusively for browsing. FF is used for development. On my Mac, I tend to still surf using Safari. The one thing I absolutely love about Chrome is the all in one search/address bar. Drives me nuts in other browsers when I don’t have this. You can get early access to the official Chromium for Mac here:http://dev.chromium.org/get…

    1. Dittto! That’s how I use Chrome and FF. The all-in-one bar is addictive because it’s simplifies the UI and it’s economical by eliminating wasted ergonomic activity

       1. Completely. You don’t know how many times I’ve entered search terms inSafari’s address bar at home. 😀

    2. Umm- Firefox sort of does that.Type in “how to get something done”- and it will reroute you to google’s top link, which happens to be at Ehow.The UI of both are not well developed- because those facts are not made clear

       1. Never really clued into FF having that – guess cause they still have thesearch box.

          1. Which is why I’ve decided t stopped to think of them as just browsers. They are more like- what can I do with this new machine sort of things.Unless you are doing something that needs to be done on a computer as a computer, such as heavy graphic work- the internet is the new computer. It’s like getting home the first computer I really worked with, I hated it until I figured out how to use it. We’re still figuring the internet out.

47. Chrome is the best browser out there. I’ve gotten so used to using it while I was at Google, when I had to use Firefox on my wife’s laptop this morning and later Safari on another laptop in the house, the experience was downright painful. The web is so much faster with Chrome, i love that search and suggest are integrated into the URL bar, and not having those features is just a bummer when you expect them. The first thing i’m doing on my new thinkpad is putting Chrome on it.

    1. Any idea when mac users will get a production version of chrome dick?

48. I use Chrome 90 percent of the time. When I first made the move to Chrome, I was constantly going back and forth between Chrome and FF. Chrome does grow on you.It is faster and easier to use once you get use to it. Some people find the switch to Chrome disconcerting. I did at first.But like most things, faster and simpler is good.I remember way back when I first learned about Google for search. Used it sparingly at first, and then, bye bye Yahoo. Now it is bye bye FF.My guess is that Chrome will win out in the long run.

49. Any chance Google OS could be targeted just for Android Mobile, I mean most compusers will use Ubunta or Windows. I think it is heading straight to Anrdoid. ActuallyI’m almost sure about it. Any one care to comment on this. – Place your bets.

    1. No one took me up on the bet yesterday.Well Google CEO just announced today indeed, Google Chrome OS and Android are the perfect match.Can I call em, or what?The Half Truth Below:According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the company’s Android mobile platform and their newly-announced Google Chrome OS have “a great deal of commonality.” In fact, according to the executive, the two OSes “may merge even closer” in the future.A Great DEAL in Commonality???Are they kidding. They where made to integrate, for what?Want to really no what google is planning to do with Chrome OS?Isn’t it clear as day.Anyone who’s been around long enough can see the next step,which is one of Google’s very Own Apps.I’m sure they will be announcing this coincidental commonality soon as well.It is not commonality, it is strategic development.LEAKED: Google Chrome OS: The Real Truthhttp://yourblogmoney.com/blog/2009/07/10/leaked-google-chrome-os-the-real-truth

50. Interesting to see this next to your other blog post about mac vs pc use – because I use my MBP most of the time (Safari) but a PC with Chrome at work. I think Chrome is fantastic and wish it was around for mac.. but there’s that whole availability thing stopping me 🙂

51. chrome is coming out soon for macs. chrome is so fast for web apps, that its unreasonable to not use it for that purpose. but if Google made Firefox apps compatible or created a solid extension market – that would be huge. FF is blowing it by not making extensions compatible with 3.5

52. on your website Fred – hardly a ‘representative’ site with the number of techies you have on your site.IE (in various flavors) still leads the world be a very very large margin.

53. 9% is pretty high. The May figure from Net Applications was 1.8%, and I think that’s more reflective of the general internet audience. Worth noting, too, that NA puts IE at 65%, still.Personally, I’ve tried Chrome and like it. But I’d rather use Safari, because I want something which works across all the platforms I use.

54. Well, I started using Chrome because Firefox has major issues with how the Quicktime and Java plug ins work together and behave. I often find even though I have the latest plug ins for Firefox version 3.0.11 – the quicktime player is not working and I can’t use like uploads for Facebook photos because Java is not working. It’s just terrible and impacts streaming media abilities. Chrome has offered me a fix for when I need to do these tasks on a browser.

55. Again, you have a blog community that handily prefers Firefox to Explorer. That is a techie bias just like with the Windows, Mac thing.I got excited about Chrome last fall but once I realized it does not jive well with Blogger I have been on Firefox since.What are your top/favorite Firefox add-ons?

    1. I should blog about that. I will

       1. I have avoided Firefox add-ons so far. No particular reason. JP got me onto Twitter. http://technbiz.blogspot.co… Maybe you will get me onto Firefox add-ons. 🙂 I will eagerly await the blog post.

56. I started using Chrome for one reason – I can type my Google search into the address bar. I know that sounds odd, given that you can just have Google search bar open in the other browsers. Something about the option of typing in a address or a search into the url bar feels more user friendly and slightly faster.

    1. I started using chrome on my office machine (windows) this weekIts better than firefox. But I still keep ff open so I can use my extensionsI wish chrome had extensions