Chrome headed to be #1 Browser

Business Insider recently reported that Chrome is now the number 1, or near number one browser of choice, and its popularity has come as the expense of IE as shown in the chart below

The data set is based on statistics collected by StatCounter, and is probably not reliable for specific figures but sufficiently reliable for showing trends – in this case, that Chrome is stealing market share mainly from IE and somewhat from Firefox. In any case, a significant amount of internet traffic is now being funneled through the Chrome security model. The previous browser prediction that I posted on, that Firefox would overtake IE by Christmas 2012, agrees quite well with the data set above.

10 Reasons Why Microsoft's Internet Explorer Dominance is Ending

It has been widely reported recently that Microsoft’s share of the global browser market has fallen below 60% for the first time. If this trends continues then Firefox is forecasted to overtake IE by Christmas 2012. Don Resinger at eWeek has given his reasons why IE is losing market share (and also mind share) as follows

1. The European Union
2. Microsoft's complacency
3. Internet Explorer's security
4. Rebounding from IE 6
5. The features aren't there
6. The Google conundrum
7. The united fight against Microsoft
8. The educated user
9. No-names are actually doing well
10. Microsoft is still lost on the Web

The Tab Power Law for Firefox

Mozilla has released its 2010 Q1 analyst report on the state of the internet. The report was created to "provide a high-level view of key metrics on an ongoing basis and to share some interesting insights". Well, its a little short at 12 well-spaced pages, and the summary bullets are not that exciting

• Firefox’s worldwide market share hovering near 30%
• Firefox adoption is growing most dramatically in Russia
• People start their work day earliest in Hawaii and Wyoming; latest start to the day is in New York
• People in South American like applying Personas (themes) to their browser; people in Antarctica love add-ons

For me the most interesting observation was the number of open tabs people work with in FireFox, as shown in the graph below.

Most people use 2 to 3 tabs, however the maximum observed value was over 600! Also, since the median is 2.9, over half the people use almost 3 or more tabs. The graph above clearly has a power law structure, and in this case, quite a long tail.

Projection: Firefox overtakes IE by Christmas 2012

It has been widely reported that the global market share for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has fallen below 60%. While pundits, commentators and technologists discuss the future of IE, Zack Whittaker at ZDNet has done “a bit of maths” and produced the following extrapolation, showing FireFox passing IE market share around December 2012.

Assuming Zack has done his Excel sums correctly, the prediction is still pure data extrapolation. The last year has been extremely unfavourable for IE with its security flaws and the playing out of the European anti-trust case against Microsoft. Redmond may still be able to turn the prediction around.