Google Chrome: The Fast Browser With Slow Adoption

Is the reason people get away with saying "There's no chrome for mac or linux" that chrome doesn't exist on those platforms but chromium does? I've been using chrome (or chromium, whatever) on linux for about 2.5 months and it's great. I use it on my macbook too and it's also really good. So what gives?

scw• 17 years ago

There's no non-developer release yet, and the browser isn't feature-complete on non-Windows platforms. For example, on Ubuntu I can't open links from other programs with Chrome, and asking it to restore tabs when opening the browser doesn't work.

I'm sure once they make official versions the situation will change, I've been happy having it as my secondary browser on all three platforms despite the hiccups.

nostrademons2• 17 years ago

I'm posting this from Chrome on the Mac. It works well enough to use for daily use. There're still some glitches, but in general I've found it better than Safari or Firefox (both of which I also have installed...web developers need everything).

stanleydrew2• 17 years ago

Yeah that's a good point. I guess they do make it a little hard to find because they don't want the masses getting hold of it. And I hadn't realized that about the opening links from other programs in Ubuntu, but now that you mention it you are right.

mattyb• 17 years ago

In Ubuntu 9.04, go to System->Preferences->Preferred Applications, and select Chromium. I'm using the chromium-daily PPA (https://launchpad.net/~chromium-daily/+archive/ppa), and links from other apps work fine.

dustingetz• 17 years ago

relax. browser market share is about branding and building those takes time.

zandorg• 17 years ago

I had this wierd thing where I'd flip to Chrome, and it'd draw its screen line by line, like a broken Amiga. I switched to Firefox after that. [I was using Chrome because of wanting to use Google Wave).

boucher2• 17 years ago

4% market share in a year seems pretty impressive to me. The last major browser to launch, Safari, had about 2% market share two years after its release. Three years after that it was at 6% (depending on where you look). In another year, Chrome will probably have a significant lead on Safari, which will be 7 years old. Never mind Opera.

benofsky3• 17 years ago

I don't think Google's primary goal here is to have the largest market share in the browser market but to be able to drive innovation in the other leading browsers through competition.

Google Chrome drove Firefox (and others) to improve the speed of their javascript engines/interpreters which is hugely beneficial for Google meaning their web apps now run faster across the board.

In my opinion, Google Chrome exists to help Google push other browsers to introduce new features that make their web applications more accessible to everyone else.

fnid2• 17 years ago

That's why they have television commercials for chrome?

If they wanted to make the web better, why didn't they just contribute to the Firefox project itself rather than inventing their own browser?

Releasing, yet another browser only complicates things for existing web developers.

benofsky3• 17 years ago

Well the other browsers aren't going to make their product better if no one knows of anything better hence the tv commercials.

They didn't contribute to Firefox instead of inventing their own browser because if they have a browser of their own their contributions and improvements don't have to be approved (or denied) by a 3rd party.

Chrome also does not make things more complicated for existing web developers as it is based of webkit so it renders pages very similarly to Safari.

whopa2• 17 years ago

To be fair to Google, they tried to contribute to Firefox back in the Firefox 1.x timeframe, but they realized that Mozilla is rather dysfunctional open source project. It is incredibly hard to get feature work into Mozilla as an outsider, so they decided to go their own way. In a way they got what they wanted in the end, now with Mozilla copying stuff from Chrome wholesale now that someone else has made them look bad.

The main things holding Chrome back adoption-wise is a stable Mac version, and extension hooks to support popular functionality like AdBlock and Noscript. With those you'll start seeing geeks and tech influencers switch, which will probably start eating at Firefox's market share. It's a testament to the power of Google's brand that it's got as much market share right now as it does, which is mainly at the expense of IE.

thristian• 17 years ago

A more impressive example: Chrome's multiple-process rendering system has spurred Mozilla to work on a similar system to Firefox - and not just copying the idea, but wholesale importing code from Chromium:

    https://wiki.mozilla.org/Content_Processes

benofsky3• 17 years ago

Ah, very interesting. Didn't think of this in relation to my point above but it explains why Chrome is open-source too.

Perceval• 17 years ago

Mozilla was working on an updated Javascript engine before Chrome was announced (actually, accidentally leaked via comic book). Chrome certainly lit a fire under Firefox and Safari to release their updated Javascript engines, but their implementations were in the pipeline before anyone formally knew about Chrome.

NathanKP• 17 years ago

I don't use Google Chrome because they haven't made an official version for Mac OS X. The current developer version for Mac OS X is very buggy and unreliable.

boucher2• 17 years ago

I have to disagree. I've been using it full time for a week and it hasn't crashed yet. It's faster than Safari, and it's open source. It has some UI quirks still, but on the whole it's a great browser.

fserb• 17 years ago

"To date, Chrome really hasn't had the success that I suspect Google had anticipated for it," said Sheri McLeish, a Forrester analyst.

What sort of comment is that? One could create a quote like that about virtually anything in the world.

The article as a whole seems pretty bad. Looks like the author was looking for a reality to support his thesis...

chrischen• 17 years ago

It's like Silverlight. Initially people were like "oh flash is already on 99% of computers" but failed to realize the fact that 99% (not really, but close enough) of computers come with Windows, and Microsoft controls Windows. Microsoft, when ready, can easily get people to use it.

And with Google, all it has to do is slap that browser on its front page if it really wanted the average user to switch.

Obviously Google chrome still has some kinks, so they won't want the average user to switch just yet (assuming that's even their goal).

Google Chrome: The Fast Browser With Slow Adoption

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