A quick note here about the usage of Chrome by visitors to Web sites from which I have access to data. I notice that Chrome accounts now for between 0.5% and 2% of visits. On some large Web sites (150,000 to 2,000,000 visits a month), the percentage is around 0.5%. If I look at that ratio during the last week, I see a small increase in all sites. The 2% ratio is on my own site; my audience seems to be more on the Internet savvy side if I consider the large proportion of FireFox (46%) users compare to large public sites (15%), if that is any indication. I was expecting that more visitors would be coming to my site using Chrome by this time.
Those ratios will certainly go up by Christmas, but it seems that there was not a Gold Rush here. Habits are hard to change, and I must say that Chrome didn’t “wow” me enough to make it my by default browser (IE is still what I use most often).
What about you? What have you noticed in your stats?
Following a post, on the Yahoo WA group on that topic, I had a look at stats from some of our European sites (100,000 to 500,000+ visits a month)after mid September. The figures are very similar to yours: around 0.6%-0.7% of visits.
Surprisingly, it was Spain & Italy that got highest share: between 1.1 – 1.5% of visits!
I think that a majority of people browsing the Internet are either not aware or do see any reason to switch. Add to that, the fact that many people browse during office hours. And in most cases, IE is the default installation at work (and not all employees are entitle to install whatever they want).
Cheers.
Michaël
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your comment, and especially for sharing those numbers with us. Intersting to see Spain and Italy at basically double the rate! I wonder why…
You are right; browsing is still something done a lot at the office, and we know IE dominance there, for sure. That being said, FireFox has managed to occupy a good 15% of the majority of the sites I analyze. True, it toook it a couple of years to get there.
I was just surprised that not more people at rushed to Chrome, and I think that that browser does not appear (to me anyway) to offer something totally new (in the transofrmational sense recently described by Avinash Kaushik that would make us switch right away.
Hi Jacques,
No idea why Spain & Italy did better to be honest. Regarding Firefox penetration, some European countries are showing very impressive results: Germany & Poland loves it (>30% of visits) and it is quite successful in France (> 20% of visits). In other Western countries like UK Netherlands, Sweden, Spain… it ranges from 10-15%.
Regarding Chrome, it is true it has nothing outstanding but I like it for one simple reason: it is damned fast – it takes only very few seconds to start and browsing is smooth. Still, for work I used IE / FF for all the plug-ins and add-ons (including WASP). Also it still lacks what FF users love: add-ons.
Hi Michael,
Thanks a whole lot for sharing those figures!
I think we need to put Chrome into the context of cloud computing,i.e. that all apps will be used through a browser in the future, which is what I understand Chrome was intended for. It’s one piece of the puzzle of Google’s vision of information technology.
With Chrome, Google proposes a UI that will become browsing and search in one place, and will thus become the unavoidable intermediary between users and the Web. Anyway, I think this is the kind a high-octane thinking that’s going on on Friday afternoons in Mountain View!
Jacques – IE? Really? With all the great plugins and productivity advantages that Firefox offers?
Just pulling your leg, I know how hard it is to make the switch, used to be an IE exclusive user till I saw the light.
Chrome does offer some interesting things like speed, but they have an uphill battle to increase adoption rate. Maybe as more people become dependent on Google products as they interconnect them we’ll see a surge in Chrome users.
Hi Xurxo,
You know how an old gorilla I am… The thing is I use IE because I never delete my cookies. Why? Because I need to be recognized by many web sites out there; it’s SO convenient. By the way, I think I share this situation with more and more people, which will have the effect of lowing cookie deletion rates, I believe. I use FF professionally for testing where I need to often delete my cookies.
I agree with you, Chrome will dramatically pick up once we start using the Web for more than just visiting/using sites. I see that, in a 5 to 10 years span (can’t be sooner cf. Microsoft), everything will be done through a “browser” (cloud computing, online hard drives, etc.).
It will most probably be a good thing: ubiquitous access to one’s stuff and computing power, no more need to buy expensive boxes (yeah, those computers), extremely fluid collaborative networks, etc.
Thanks for reading Analytics Notes!
You use IE mostly? Some would say that makes you a masocist! 😉
Interesting, I had no idea cookie deletion rates were so high! Is that among a specific demographic of more savvy web users or in general?
Old gorilla eh? I wouldn’t discount anyone who’s old, especially when they are still willing to learn and innovate – an open mind is a young mind!
You paint a very interesting picture of what’s to come on the internet and computing. I’m really looking forward to seeing many of these advances come to existence.
On that note, have you read the Cluetrain Manifesto? Really great read that’s still relevant today. If you haven’t you can read it online for free:
http://www.cluetrain.com/book/index.html
Xurxo: Yes, some studies (particularly comScore, but they were accused of being biased) say that close to 30% of US users delete their cookies at least once a month. What was shocking with the comScore study was that they said people even deleted first-party cookies! The Web Analytics world and the IAB got mad (c. beginning 2006).
Well, the Internet is *still* an interesting world. We are just starting to understand what it really meant to plug computers together 40 years ago.
Yes, I read Cluetrain circa 2000, and I thought it was marketing on LSD. I guess I should re-read it. An interesting book I read in 1999 was intersting to peruse again: Futurize Your Enterprise by David Siegel.
Mark: Don’t tell my wife!
For my blog visitors, Chrome constitutes around 2.35% behind IE (66.3%), Firefox (27.5%), Safari (2.78%). Most people went on to test Chrome in few days with the boom, but I see dont numbers increasing.
For me it is Firefox, and I see no reason to change it also.
Bhupendra