Thought: The Google Chrome Phenomenon

So I was checking my blog stats, and I saw that 47% of the people that come check out the blog use Google Chrome. In fact, there are more people using that web browser versus the people that use Firefox and Internet Explorer combined! So that kind of got me thinking...When did everybody stop using the other web browsers and start using Google Chrome? At what point in our lives did we decide to make that change?


So I started digging up some information and I found this article from PC World in the Washington Post website called "Google Chrome Web Browser" from September 8, 2008, where they actually predict the overwhelming effect that Google's new product is going to have on everybody that goes online! Check out what the guy says at the beggining:


"Google takes aim squarely at Microsoft with the release of its new Web browser, Chrome. And Microsoft should be very afraid: Chrome lives up to its hype by rethinking the Web browser in clever and convenient ways that make using the Web a more organic experience than you'd get with eitherMicrosoft's Internet Explorer 8 or Mozilla's Firefox 3." - Nick Mediati


I just find it really cool that Google has really taken everything we do in our lives and simplified it thru the easy and simple access to information. They've done it with YouTube, the Google.com search engine, through Gmail and document sharing (Google Docs), and also with the way we navigate online with Google Chrome. 


After reading this, I obviously wanted to see Google Chrome's growth through the past couple of years compared to the main web browsers like IE, Firefox and Safari to see how they match up and whats going on. I found some stats online that had the usage of each of these applications. I took a look at it and tabulated it so I go ahead and make graphs to show you guys and, not so much to my surprise, IE has been loosing a lot of terrain since 2003 to 2010 where Firefox has been holding on but dropping near the endo of 2010. Google Chrome on the other hand (insert inspiring trumpet sound) has only been out for 2 years and have been growing so quickly that it is about to overtake IE as second most used web browser. Pretty cool, huh?

I'd like to close with Nicks's last phrase in the article:


"Google has produced an excellent browser that is friendly enough to handle average browsing activities without complicating the tasks, but at the same time is powerful enough to meet the needs of more-advanced users." - Nick Mediati


So...people of Google: we salute you!


Google Chrome Web Browser