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Google Chrome market share still rising
| Jan Vermeulen | March 11, 2011 | No comments |
Jan Vermeulen
Jan Vermeulen is a technology journalist and web developer at MyBroadband. After receiving a Computer Engineering degree at the University of Pretoria he worked at...
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February's 2011 browser usage statistics show that Chrome's usage share continues to rise
Google Chrome continued its rise in popularity while Internet Explorer and Firefox seemed to lose some ground to the search giant’s web browser.
Based on the WebKit layout engine, Google launched the Chrome beta for Windows in September 2008. The first public release of the popular browser was in December 2008.
Currently in version 9 and with Chrome 10 on the way, Google Chrome prides itself as a fast, lightweight and robust browser. Considering its rapid growth since launch, Google must have done something right when they built it.
While Chrome’s user base is growing fast, Safari’s has slowly increased its share over the last few years and Opera and Firefox seem to have largely stagnated.
Firefox’s overall market share has declined over the last few months, but not nearly as quickly as Internet Explorer’s has.
The table below shows the browser usage statistics for February 2011 according to Net Applications, StatCounter and W3Counter.
| Source | Internet Explorer | Firefox | Chrome | Safari | Opera |
| Net Applications | 56.77% | 21.74% | 10.93% | 6.36% | 2.15% |
| Stat Counter | 45.44% | 30.37% | 16.64% | 5.08% | 2.00% |
| W3Counter | 40.20% | 30.50% | 15.20% | 6.00% | 2.00% |
| Median | 45.44% | 30.37% | 15.20% | 6.00% | 2.00% |
| Mean | 47.47% | 27.54% | 14.26% | 5.81% | 2.05% |
MyBroadband’s browser statistics drawn from Google Analytics shows similar usage for Safari and Opera during February 2011, but the number of visitors that used Internet Explorer are much lower than the global average.
| Browser usage share on MyBroadband from 1 February 2011 to 28 February 2011 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Browser usage share | Browser on operating system usage share | |||
| Rank | Browser | Share | Browser / Operating system | Share |
| 1 | Internet Explorer | 34.49% | Internet Explorer / Windows | 34.46% |
| 2 | Firefox | 32.00% | Firefox / Windows | 28.09% |
| 3 | Chrome | 20.56% | Chrome / Windows | 18.37% |
| 4 | Safari | 6.10% | Opera Mini / (not set) | 3.35% |
| 5 | Opera Mini | 3.62% | Safari / Macintosh | 3.05% |
| 6 | Opera | 2.13% | Firefox / Linux | 2.25% |
| 7 | Mozilla Compatible Agent | 0.38% | Opera / Windows | 1.88% |
| 8 | BlackBerry8520 | 0.15% | Firefox / Macintosh | 1.63% |
| 9 | BlackBerry9700 | 0.10% | Chrome / Linux | 1.19% |
| 10 | Mozilla | 0.08% | Safari / iPhone | 1.15% |
It is also interesting to see Opera Mini ranking fifth on MyBroadband, ahead of the Opera desktop browser.
Compared to the statistics pulled in December 2010, both Chrome and Internet Explorer have seen increased usage to access MyBroadband, at the apparent expense of Firefox.
Safari has also seen increased use on MyBroadband since January, while Opera and Opera Mini’s share of the usage declined.
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