The Internet vs. Us: How Browser Wars Affect Our Business
Written September 3rd, 2008 by Thomas AmesThe news has barely had time to settle in, but Google has officially released its Web browser, Chrome. With Firefox holding approximately 15% of the marketshare and IE holding much of the rest, Chrome’s influence is yet to be seen, but if Google is serious about taking away traditional IE users and pushes it to its search engine users, we could perhaps see a marketshare of 5-10%, if not more, within a year. And that could spell trouble for our Web sites, which often have to be partially recoded for browser-specific capabilities and quirks.
Early reports about Chrome are mixed, and have generally been compared to the newest version of IE, also recently released. Many of the enhancements Chrome brings are superficial and have to do with usability and more dashboard-like features, such as tabbing and relocating some of the features to allow more of the Web page to display.
I’ve yet to read any report on how coding is interpreted and displayed by the browser, but undoubtedly there will be some quirks. At what point will you and your organization consider Chrome in your Web displaying? Further, have you had any initial feedback on testing your site for Chrome?
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Chrome is built on the same open-source WebKit engine as Safari, so quirks should be few and far between as long as your site is well designed.
It’s hard to imagine any start-up browser jeopardizing IE’s market share as long as Windows ships with IE as the default browser. On the other hand, you can already see a link to “Download Chrome” on Google.com, which is the single-most visited page in the United States and reaches 30% of the world-wide audience every day. Now that’s some marketing power.
I wouldn’t doubt the power of Google. Chrome is fast, real fast. Is it any coincidence they have been heavily involved in the mobile platform recently? I’m sure Chrome for your mobile device is coming soon.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I’ve tested my (pretty extensive) suite of sites in Chrome and everything comes up as expected so far. Speaking to other developers, I haven’t heard anything negative. As Blayne mentions, Chrome uses WebKit and renders standards-compliant sites predictably.
Not like IE8 that brings a whole new set of ‘oh shit’ moments to the table. Thankfully they’re allowing people to drop back to a ‘render as IE7′ option which saves you building a whole new set of IE8-specific hacks into your pretty CSS.
Not sure how successful Chrome will be in stealing market share from the complacent whatever-came-installed majority but I wish them all the luck in the world. The mythical ‘cloud’ might be looming closer on the horizon than any of us had previously imagined.
September 5th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Actually, doesn’t Firefox have more than 40 percent of the marketshare?
August 2008 report from W3 Consortium: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
September 18th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
40% .. maybe in their dreams…
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2008/August/browser.php
Had this discussion with another web developer the other day over I/M about why the two stats are so different. We guessed that w3schools.com probably gets their stats from people who visit their site (i.e. ‘web geeks’) and that web geeks probably use FF more than the general public.
I’ve seen a propensity for us (I include myself in that ‘web geek’ category) to think that if we like it or use it, then it must be the best and that everyone else is in the same ship (hole, bucket, world, page) as us… and if they’re not, then they’re stupid. Have seen the example many times of someone who has a Mac’s and use Firefox and how they defend themselves to the bitter end because they think they’re far superior to the rest of the ‘uneducated’ universe…
Hard facts are as Blayne mentioned… Windows ships with IE. As a society we’re lazy.. and if my PC (which is cheaper and more readily accessible - can’t buy a Mac at Walmart - therefore requires less work for me) ships with IE, then I’m (by default) and IE user.
I think it will be a long time before IE dies simply because of the laziness factor of humanity.
Just because something is better doesn’t mean we’re going to use it … look at how many people drive SUV’s and they’re by no stretch of the imagination economical, affordable, green-friendly, etc…
September 18th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
One more thing…
I host 50+ websites and have checked my stats on the high traffic ones.. as well as the site that I work on for my full-time job… My stats are MUCH closer to the http://www.thecounter.com stats than w3schools stats. FF is running about 8% - 12% on the sites I can access stats from… so whether my theory of ‘web geek’ statistical slant is correct or not.. the stats of w3schools are definitely not what you would see in a ‘normal’ world.