Chrome now the most popular browser • Hacker News Board

Re: Chrome now the most popular browser

#91

Post by xiaoma » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 2:21 AM UTC

Tobu wrote: post #87

xiaoma wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say stronghold. IE is still the leader but by a relatively small margin in most English speaking markets. The strongholds are China and Korea, where IE usage is well over 70%. In fact, considering that China has the most internet usage of anywhere in the world I have my doubts about the veracity of the world-wide graph. It probably drastically undersamples Chinese numbers. http://gs.statcounter.com/#browse…

StatCounter sees low usage from China (in page-views). The great firewall certainly plays a role. I wonder if said firewall doesn't also play games with the user-agent header, though. http://gs.statcounter.com/press/open-letter-ms#incorrect-wei...

I don't buy it. I just moved here from China a couple of months ago, and if anything I'd say 70% is an overly conservative estimation of IE usage. Both of my banks, for example, were accessible only through IE with an active X plug-in which made it impossible for me to check my balance on my mac. The same was true of many, many other sites. Much like the US was 10 years ago, only really hard-core geeks were likely to have firefox or other alternative browsers.

As for usage, I also don't buy that. Most people in China are online primarily through their phones, but in first tier cities (which is still a gigantic population), people have bandwidth that most Americans could only dream of. Youku, for example, streamed 5 times the hours of video content as all of Youtube last I checked. And Tudou (which it is merging with) was a competitor on the same scale! In terms of page views, I'd be shocked if Amazon had as many as Taobao. No US news portal approaches QQ. Actually, Tencet (owner of QQ) is considering buying Yahoo!. The only way in which China's internet is small is in the amount of money its users want to spend on content.

Re: Chrome now the most popular browser

#92

Post by pclark » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 3:15 AM UTC

adhipg wrote: post #38

nextstep wrote: post #37

I'm switching back to Safari when Mountain Lion is released. The unified search/address bar was the only thing holding me back.

Just curious, what are the issues that you have with Chrome that you want to switch back?

I have consistently found Chrome to never quite feel "Mac like."

Re: Chrome now the most popular browser

#93

Post by SiVal » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 5:42 AM UTC

judofyr wrote: post #7

Akamai just recently released their statistics, which shows a completely different picture: http://www.akamai.com/io

When you compare the Akamai stats to Statcounter's "North America" stats, the resemblance is a lot closer. It's possible that Akamai's traffic has a heavy North American weighting.

Re: Chrome now the most popular browser

#94

Post by zizee » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 5:48 AM UTC

femto113 wrote: post #59

abrahamsen wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, the only region where Chrome is not leading MSIE, is North America. In Europe, Chrome has a small lead. In Asia, a medium lead. In South America, a large lead. In Africa, both are dwarfed by Firefox. One possible unfounded speculation would be that it is connected to the age of the widespread adoption of the Internet. In North America, most users have likely been on the net for a long time and ther…

Actually IE has huge leads in South Korea and China, who are among the top internet users. The Microsoft blog post linked above has the root cause here: StatCounter has outsized representation for India and Turkey, both which see heavy Chrome use, and doesn't adjust its overall numbers to account for this (a fact which they are open about, but it diminishes the relevance of their overall number).

And what is going in in Australia?

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-AU-monthly-201105-201205

Re: Chrome now the most popular browser

#95

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 5:50 AM UTC

xiaoma wrote: post #91

Tobu wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

StatCounter sees low usage from China (in page-views). The great firewall certainly plays a role. I wonder if said firewall doesn't also play games with the user-agent header, though. http://gs.statcounter.com/press/open-letter-ms#incorrect-wei...

I don't buy it. I just moved here from China a couple of months ago, and if anything I'd say 70% is an overly conservative estimation of IE usage. Both of my banks, for example, were accessible only through IE with an active X plug-in which made it impossible for me to check my balance on my mac. The same was true of many, many other sites. Much like the US was 10 years ago, only really hard-core geeks were likely to…

I disagree with your claim that bandwidth in 1st tier cities is anywhere as good as in the states. At work, at home, and in the cafe my internet is always slow, even when pinging local sites (Beijing). I'm always amazed when I go back to the states to visit and I can use...Netflix at my sister's place. Americans have bandwidth that we Beijingers can only dream of.

True about IE and banks, but its easy enough to use IE when banking online and switch to whatever else you want.

I don't know what the numbers really are; I suspect IE use is still high but might be lower in Beijing given all the Macbooks being used by the middle class.

Re: Chrome now the most popular browser

#96

Post by Aloisius » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 5:58 AM UTC

It's amazing what happens when you leverage your near monopoly in one area to push a product in another.

Re: Chrome now the most popular browser

#97

Post by xiaoma » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 8:05 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #95

xiaoma wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy it. I just moved here from China a couple of months ago, and if anything I'd say 70% is an overly conservative estimation of IE usage. Both of my banks, for example, were accessible only through IE with an active X plug-in which made it impossible for me to check my balance on my mac. The same was true of many, many other sites. Much like the US was 10 years ago, only really hard-core geeks were likely to…

I disagree with your claim that bandwidth in 1st tier cities is anywhere as good as in the states. At work, at home, and in the cafe my internet is always slow, even when pinging local sites (Beijing). I'm always amazed when I go back to the states to visit and I can use...Netflix at my sister's place. Americans have bandwidth that we Beijingers can only dream of. True about IE and banks, but its easy enough to use I…

It sounds like you just have a terrible connection. I had a 10mb connection for http://battery-pack-adapter.com/beijing-unicom-broadband-spe...

As for banking, the problem was that their active X component was a .exe download. Even with IE, it wasn't doable on a mac. ICBC did claim to have a mac app in the works, but I didn't see it before leaving.

Re: Chrome now the most popular browser

#98

Post by gpmcadam » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 9:27 AM UTC

rbreve wrote: post #52

nextstep wrote: post #37

I'm switching back to Safari when Mountain Lion is released. The unified search/address bar was the only thing holding me back.

try chrome for iOS you can share your open tabs with all your devices

This is a nice feature. But if this is the only thing keeping someone using Chrome over Safari, then fear not: iOS6 is introducing this feature for Safari in the coming Autumn.

http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/#safari

Re: Chrome now the most popular browser

#99

Post by Axsuul » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 9:29 AM UTC

dennisgorelik wrote: post #78

According to Google Analytics for my web site (postjobfree.com), top 10 browsers in the last 30 days: 1. Internet Explorer - 40.02% 2. Chrome - 21.33% 3. Firefox - 19.99% 4. Safari - 11.80% 5. Android Browser - 3.74% 6. Mozilla Compatible Agent - 1.33% 7. Opera Mini - 0.70% 8. Opera - 0.54% 9. IE with Chrome Frame - 0.21% 10. BlackBerry8530 - 0.03% So it's not as rosy yet as we'd like.

It's all about your audience. Here are my last 30 day stats for jellibug.com, which appeals to a younger crowd

1. Chrome - 40.49%

2. Safari - 28.66%

3. Firefox - 19.41%

4. Internet Explorer - 7.91%

5. Mozilla Compatible Agent - 1.46%

6. Android Browser - 1.00%

7. RockMelt - 0.40%

8. Opera - 0.33%

9. Opera Mini - 0.13%

10. BlackBerry9630 - 0.07%

Re: Chrome now the most popular browser

#100

Post by gcp » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 9:32 AM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #90

cooldeal wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy false dichotomy batman. Just because one company is abusive doesn't mean that you need to cheerlead another abusive company. Google is hurting Firefox and Opera by their actions too.

> Google is hurting Firefox ...By giving Mozilla $300MM a year?

Don't equate a business marketing/advertising decision maximizing Google profits with philanthropy.