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Chrome makes Safari take a back seat

ComputerWorld is reporting that Chrome has surpassed Safari as the third-most popular browser.

According to Net Applications, which tracks the browser habits of 160 million unique visitors each month to the 40,000 sites it monitors for customers, Chrome's share jumped to 4.4% for the week of Dec. 6-12, an increase of 0.4 percentage points over Google's slice of the browser pie for the month of November.

Chrome's share during the week topped Safari's 4.37%, said Vince Vizzaccaro, executive vice president of Net Applications. "It appears that Chrome has made a substantial surge in usage market share," Vizzaccaro said in an e-mail.


Not surprising considering how much Google is pushing it. In the last two days I've seen dozens of Chrome ads on Facebook and (more surprisingly) the Amazon.co.uk home page.

Chrome is based on WebKit – an open source web browser engine. WebKit is also the name of the Mac OS X system framework version of the WebKit browser engine that's used by Safari, Dashboard, Mail, and many other OS X applications. I've only played around with Chrome for a few days, but I'm happy to stick with Safari for now (I love my MobileMe sync).

Here's how the top four browsers play out in market share:

Internet Explorer 63.6%
Firefox 24.7%
Chrome 4.4%
Safari 4.37%


What about you guys? Firefox, Chrome, IE (if you're on a PC) or Safari? Tell us what you use in the poll!

Which browser do you use on your Mac or PC?
Internet Explorer125 (1.3%)
Firefox2627 (26.7%)
Chrome1505 (15.3%)
Safari5429 (55.1%)
Other159 (1.6%)


ComputerWorld is reporting that Chrome has surpassed Safari as the third-most popular browser. According to Net Applications, which tracks...
 

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Chris

I use all four. Which one I use at a particular time depends on what I'm doing. While Safari is often reasonably fast, I wouldn't trust it to transmit confidential information.

From fastest to slowest, it's:
1. Chrome
2. Safari
3. Firefox
4. Internet Explorer

Sometimes, Chrome is a lot faster than Safari. Most of the time, however, Chrome barely edges out Safari. Firefox seems like the average of one of the four randomly chosen. IE is light years behind when it comes to speed. M$ really pisses me off that they would not take personal accountability for their formatting glitch in IE 8.

December 19 2009 at 11:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Daniel

One little annoyance with Chrome: It doesn't seem to remember scroll position in the history. Maybe they'll address that in 1.0

December 18 2009 at 8:32 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Michael Bushnell

I am using the Chrome Beta on my MBP as the default browser. So far it is working like a champ.

December 16 2009 at 8:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
cheez

Chrome for both my PC and my Mac. Im using Chrome for Mac since developers release and im really happy with it, except the fact that is ugly.
It's lighting fast and really speedy.

I like safari but i hate that there isn't an option to open my previous tabs when i open it, also safari, from my perspective should have been a lot faster to load on the Mac, but it doesn't.

I would definitely go on Safari and stick with it if they try harder and make it faster on loading pages and also on start up.
Last but not least, i hate the fact that they have dropped the best feature for me Safari had, the loading bar on adress bar, can someone explain to me why they did that?

Oh well, Chrome does the job for me.

December 16 2009 at 6:13 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Andy Marshall

I use firefox for development work (having firebug is just the most awesome add-on for a browser - don't know how I built sites without it!!), but for just enjoyment of a browser, I use Chrome.

I've never been much of a safari person - never liked the look of it - seeing as it doesn't ship with Windows PCs, I've only installed it for testing browsers.

Obviously IE is a complete dog, but again I have that as I need to test on it, and it came with the machine.

Chrome really is a lovely browser tho - a lit cleaner and simpler UI, without losing any of the features other browsers have with their extensive toolbars and menus.

I've not had any problems with running any of these browsers on my PC.

December 16 2009 at 5:01 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
thefjk

I started with Safari, turned to Camino and recently switched to Firefox when I updated to a new MAC, all in my quest for the perfect browser!

But I've moved once more to Chrome, the thing loaded up as soon as I clicked it. That was enough to transfer my Bookmarks. It is faster at rendering than Safari and for the first time ever I'm running intensive flash videos and games at smooth usable frame rates. It's brilliant, no hiccups or freezes.

Also just for fun, I closed the browser with a couple Tabs on, the launched it again and it was almost as if I only blinked... no load up at all, just the web, right there, the way I left it.

Chrome is the fastest browser out there, and until the other players update theirs, I'm sticking with this one!

December 16 2009 at 12:53 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Nick

This is ultimately a win for everyone. More WebKit == more compatible sites.

December 15 2009 at 11:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ron Mexico

I would use Chrome but they lack Netflix support for instant streaming. Safari has caught up with Firefox as far as I'm concerned so I'll stick with Safari until Chrome gets my instant streaming Netflix support.

December 15 2009 at 9:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dylan

I was poking around on the Chrome website and had Chrome when it was still hidden away in the developer stage. Still find Safari to have faster startup and general faster speed.

I'd be curious to see how the privacy technology in chrome compares to Safari though...

December 15 2009 at 8:45 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sara

When running Windows or Linux, it's firefox all the way. But I have had a lot of issues with Firefox running on my mac. It takes forever to load. I do use it occasionally when I need an add-on. I used to use Camino a fair bit. But now I primarily use Chrome, because it is so fast and sleek.

I've just never really liked safari.

December 15 2009 at 8:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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