Google Chrome browser claims 20% market share

Google Inc's Chrome Web browser has grabbed more than 20 per cent of global market share, while Microsoft Corp's long-time leader Internet Explorer has slipped below 50 per cent, according to Internet statistics firm StatCounter.

A seven-fold increase in usage in the last 12 months is a boost for Google, which is trying to convert its dominance in Web search into operating systems and mobile software, bringing it into direct competition with Microsoft.

Google's Chrome browser, launched in December 2008, took 20.7 per cent of the global market in June, according to StatCounter, up from 2.8 per cent a year ago.

In the same time, it said the various versions of Internet Explorer fell to 44 per cent from a 59 per cent share a year ago, while Mozilla's Firefox dipped slightly to 28 per cent from 30 per cent.

Google's gains come as the company makes a concerted push into browser-centric, or "cloud" computing. In May, Google launched its long-awaited Chromebook, a laptop that works almost entirely on software accessed via the Internet, rather than installed on the machine. This is a direct challenge to software leaders Microsoft and Apple.

Microsoft, which controlled as much as 95 per cent of the market in the early 2000s after crushing browser pioneer Netscape, has seen its market share ebb after disputes with antitrust regulators in the United States and Europe, which accused Microsoft of abusing its monopoly in operating systems to dominate the browser market.

The resolutions of those disputes effectively prohibited the world's biggest software company from making Internet Explorer the default browser in its dominant Windows operating system. Microsoft, which is developing the IE10 version of its browser, settled the issue with European Union regulators in December 2009, pledging to give consumers better access to rival browsers.

StatCounter, based in Dublin, Ireland, says its statistics are based on data collected from a sample of more than 15 billion page views per month from more than 3 million websites.

Net Applications, a more widely used browser statistics source, estimates that Google has not increased its share quite as much.

According to its market share data for June, Microsoft's Internet Explorer leads with 53.7 per cent, Firefox has 21.7 per cent and Chrome 13.1 per cent. Apple Inc's Safari has 7.5 percent and Norway's Opera Software 1.7 per cent.

Firefox Strategy Is a Recipe for Failure

Firefox 5 was launched as planned and on schedule this week--and also marked the "end of life" for support of Firefox 4. Mozilla's rapid release schedule, and the strategy to essentially make each new release a requirement to continue support paint Firefox into a corner where only loyal hobbyists can reliably use the browser.

The latest flagship version of the Mozilla Web browser comes a mere two months after the official release of Firefox 4, and also marks the end of official support for Firefox 4. From Mozilla's perspective, the "security patch" for Firefox 4 is to upgrade to Firefox 5. We can assume that in another couple months when Firefox 6 emerges, that Firefox 5 will suffer the same fate.

Firefox 4 launched two months ago today, and it is now obsolete.Were you hoping for a patch or update to address the security concerns with WebGL in Firefox? Well, if you are using Firefox 4, don't hold your breath. The "fix" for the WebGL issues in Firefox 4 is to upgrade to Firefox 5.

For consumers, it probably won't be a big deal. Firefox 5 is more like Firefox 4.1, or Firefox with some minor tweaks and updates. Compared with Firefox 4, Firefox 5 is the sort of update that many users would just automatically enable, and--if it weren't for the new version number--might barely notice. I know that Internet Explorer gets a cumulative update patch every Patch Tuesday, and it automatically installs on my PC and I never give it a second thought.

For companies and organizations, though, it is another story. The lasting, tenacious, endurance of Internet Explorer 6 is a testament to how stubborn some IT departments can be about moving to a new version of a browser.
Organizations interested in Firefox 4 might not even be done deploying the browser, and now it is already obsolete. Does Mozilla expect IT admins to halt deployment of Firefox 4 and switch gears to implement Firefox 5? Does Mozilla think that IT departments need to pick up the pace and rush deployment of Firefox 5 so they can get some use out of it before it is rendered obsolete by Firefox 6 in August?

One reader, AgentF, commented on my article about Mozilla's rapid release strategy to say, "One of the reasons I haven't fully adopted Chrome is because of the regularly scheduled major releases. It's hard trying to help out clients if they all have different versions of the software," adding, "The web doesn't drastically change every few months to warrant major releases."

Mozilla has shot Firefox in the foot. The result will be that Mozilla will continue to churn the market share of Firefox loyalists--Firefox 4 will plummet, and Firefox 5 will climb to the top...until Firefox 6. Rinse and repeat. Basically, the same percentage that use Firefox and switch from FF4 to FF5 will be the users likely to jump from FF5 to FF6.

The rest of the world--particularly companies--however, will shy away from the Mozilla browser because forcing users to upgrade every two months to keep up with the latest release just to maintain basic support and security updates is too much of a commitment.

The All New Firefox Ready To Hit Our PCs

The Mozilla Project on Wednesday rolled out release candidate versions of its Firefox 5 browser for both desktops and mobile, marking the last iterations before the final versions debut.

Labeled as the seventh beta version, the desktop software was released into the project's beta development channel as part of Mozilla's new rapid release development process. The mobile version for Android was released simultaneously. Both are available for download from the project's "Future of Firefox" page.
After entering beta last month, the final version of Firefox 5 will be unleashed on Tuesday, June 21. Firefox 6, meanwhile, is expected to arrive in August.

Increased 'Discoverability'
Since software release candidates are typically more or less identical to the final versions that follow them, this last, pre-final desktop version offers a revealing sneak peek at what we can expect to see next week.
At the top of the list of new additions, for example, is added support for CSS animations, which make it possible to animate transitions from one CSS style configuration to another.
Firefox's Do Not Track header preference, meanwhile, has been moved "to increase discoverability," the project's developers note.
Performance has been improved in canvas, JavaScript, memory and networking, while there's also improved standards support for HTML5, XHR, MathML, SMIL and canvas.
Better Desktop Environment Integration
For Linux users, the Firefox 5 release candidate offers better desktop environment integration, while spell-checking has also been improved for some locales.
Background tabs now load more quickly, and WebGL content is no longer allowed to load cross-domain textures.
Finally, because Mozilla has noticed that "very few users actually want to switch back and forth between different levels of stability and feature support for a single Firefox install," as Director of Firefox Development Johnathan Nightingale recently put it, the Firefox development channel switcher introduced in previous Firefox beta updates has been removed.

Firefox 5 for Android

New in the Android release candidate of Firefox 5, meanwhile, are a raft of bug fixes, improved page load speeds--especially on 3G networks--and added IPv6 support. A full list can be found in the release notes for the mobile version.
Bottom line? Firefox 5 is going to be a better, faster browser that supports future-Web technologies such as HTML5 better.