Chrome moves into second place in global browser usage

December 1, 2011 By Mike Flacy

While Google Chrome has quickly become popular in the United States, the browser has been growing even faster globally and just knocked Mozilla's Firefox into third place.

Based off a report from Ireland-based research firm StatCounter, the Google Chrome browser has moved into second place globally for the first time. While Microsoft’s Internet Explorer still remains at the top, Mozilla’s Firefox browser continued on a downward trend that started at the end of 2010. The research firm reported that Chrome took a 25.7 percent market share in November 2011 while Firefox fell to 25.23 percent. Just two years ago, the Google Chrome browser was barely over 4.5% and was tied with browsers like Apple’s Safari and Opera. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer surprisingly maintained browser share and hovered around 40 percent of all browsers across the globe.

Competing research firm Net Applications isn’t ready to declare Google Chrome the clear second place leader yet, but sees a similar pattern of shrinking Firefox support and growing Chrome adoption. Net Applications is predicting that Chrome will overtake Firefox by March 2012. Google’s rapid release cycle is typically credited with the rapid adoption of the browser. Using a six-week revision cycle since the launch of the browser, Google has been able to roll out speedy updates and improve the speed at which users can browse the Web. Due to growing competition, Mozilla recently ditched yearly updates to adopt a similar speedy release cycle. Google Chrome 16 recently hit beta channels last month and is expected to be released in December 2011

Regarding mobile browsers on smartphones and tablets, market share continued to fluctuate between Android and Opera Mini. BlackBerry and Symbian also each garnered three percent of the market. Safari remained at the top of the pack with 55 percent of market share due to use on the iPhone and iPad devices. Console browsing usage was still dominated by the PlayStation 3. Other console browsers included Opera, WebTV and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

For more about Google Chrome, check out our Beginner’s Guide to Google Chrome.

Showing 19 comments

Lindsworth Horatio Deer at 11:32pm 2nd December 2011 go google chrome!!
shlain66 at 11:59pm 1st December 2011 It's not surprising at all that IE is still hovering at 40%. In the workplace, the most common OS is windows and a lot of companies do not allow their employees to have administration priviledges on their laptops and/or desktops thus people are forced to use IE all the time.
Carlos Martinez at 7:50am 2nd December 2011 Never had any problems with google chrome or Firefox but the one that really sux is IE but the only reason the computers have it is because it comes with it oh and I'm glad to say that google chrome is the fastest browser I've ever Firefox is not that fast but great for downloads and we'll we all know IE sux
Fe Loreta Estrella at 11:04pm 1st December 2011 I'm sure that StatCounter is paid big time to come out with a survey result to put IE on top... it is common knowledge that more than 50% of people living in third world countries who have computers uses pirated Windows OS's, for it is common sense for them to spend a mere $2.00 on a pirated OS than spend more than a $100 on an original OS... for that reason alone not one of these people would dare open the Windows Internet Explorer, Google Chrome I would say will be the bet to be the no. 1 web browser today...
James Phillips at 5:53am 2nd December 2011 None of the browsers are perfect. People talk about Chrome like it's some kind of God but to be honest I've had as much trouble with it as I've had with IE and Firefox. In fact even more. It will periodically refuse to load pages that I can immediately load in another browser, and it sometimes forgets my user names and passwords. There are also design aspects that are less than ideal, like when you multiple sign into another Gmail account, it prefills the user name box with one of your user names (not always the one you wanted), meaning you have to physically delete it. In Firefox, the box is left blank and you click in it to bring up a list of your user names - far easier. Also, it doesn't remember the position you were on a page when you navigate back to it, nor does it remember scrolling positions on long lists of bookmarks. Like many Google products the design in some areas lacks thought. I use Firefox and Chrome about equally and have my bookmarks synced between the two.
dang206 at 9:02pm 1st December 2011 I use chrome all the time, but i always see people having crashes in flash in it now. very aggravating.
Carlos Spicywiener at 4:55am 2nd December 2011 I love both Firefox and Chrome, so there's pretty much no contest for me. IE is still crap though lolol
Relative Unknown at 8:46pm 1st December 2011 IE9 is the reason its still hovering above the rest, and most professional industries wont adopt Chrome for a while. My work place still uses Firefox although i would love for them to upgrade to Chrome. Google business model of simpler is better has worked well for it, other browsers should take notes.
Austin D. Skipper at 4:45am 2nd December 2011 I enjoy chrome for numerous convenience reasons, firefox has become the new netscape or internet explorer, the only thing I do not like about chrome so far is 1, they do not allow you to right click set image as desktop option...2, I keep dealing with crashes from flash via their SP.
Mark 'Reaper' Beauchamp at 4:45am 2nd December 2011 Boo Fire Fox Should be number one
Frank Rur at 4:41am 2nd December 2011 MMMM am pretty sure Firefox is on spot No1 perhaps this just means that the websites that use Stat counter are more popular with IE users, but not a real good sample of the entire web !
Eric Asianman Quach at 4:40am 2nd December 2011 ugh, Firefox is better. and quit bashing IE9, its actually pretty good.
Andrew McCoy at 4:37am 2nd December 2011 Chrime is great. But who the fuck uses IE?
John Santos at 4:37am 2nd December 2011 how the hell is Internet Explorer on top?
1. Karl William Davis at 9:14pm 1st December 2011 the one and only reason is because IE is the default browser on a new PC and most people are too dumb to realise that they can go download something better, like Firefox lol
Laurie Anderson at 4:36am 2nd December 2011 oh say it isn't true...knocked off Firefox...ugh!
TechFreak at 8:16pm 1st December 2011 Wow, looks like IE is starting to increase their market share after steady declines for a while. I am still also impressed that IE is hovering around 50% of the users out there still.
1. Mike Flacy at 8:27pm 1st December 2011 Kind of surprised myself too. Perhaps increased adoption of Windows 7?
  1. TechFreak at 10:10am 2nd December 2011 Actually, you could be right. Windows 7 is taking off like crazy.