[article] Just how popular is Chrome on Linux?

[Eice]

Just how popular is Chrome on Linux?

Google Chrome for Linux will be one year old on Friday 4th June. Crazy non? To mark this relatively minor milestone I’ve decided to take a look at how Google Chrome’s growth on Linux has, well, grown in that time. I can only base my findings on my blog as a whole with some outside context provided by net statistic providers.


Google Chrome: Popularity in general
Google Chrome’s’ current worldwide usage across all major operating systems is, as of April 2010, residing at a healthy 6.73%. This position makes it the third most popular browser behind Firefox & Internet Explorer.

But what about on Linux?
Google Chrome on Linux
Chromium – the open-source version of Google Chrome which implements the same feature set as Chrome, but reneges on the built-in updater and Google branding – was available several months before an official Google-endorsed version. These early builds were very basic – at first lacking even tabs and the start-page!

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_FJH0hYZmVtc/Sc...017[3].png

The development, like Chrome itself, sped along at remarkable pace and the first pre-alpha release of Google Chrome proper was made available on the 4th June 2009.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_FJH0hYZmVt...enshot_001.png

Development on the official Chrome was, again, extremely rapid and official betas for Mac OS X and Linux were released on 8 December 2009, with the Linux feature set almost comparable to that of Chrome for Windows – lacking only bookmark sync.


Google Chrome usage on Linux
To judge how popular Google Chrome is on Linux I'm going to look at visits to OMG! Ubuntu! over three separate months: the month of the first pre-release back in June 2009, again 6-ish months later in January 2010 and then in April this year.

The results below show the top 3 rated browser for Linux users visiting OMG! Ubuntu! plus Midori’s share just for kicks, though note that Midori users often identify their browser as Safari in order to get it working with GMail thus Midori results are Midori + Safari/Linux combined. It should also be noted that Chromium and Chrome do not display independently but as one browser ‘Chrome’.


% of visits made using referenced browser on Linux.
June 2009 – The month of Google Chrome’s first official Linux release

• Firefox: 86.90%
• Chrome: 2.64%
• Opera: 3.75%
• Midori: 0.13%

January 2010

• Firefox: 56.93%
• Chrome: 31.49%
• Opera: 3.12%
• Midori: 0.87%

April 2010

• Firefox: 55.52%
• Chrome: 36.53%
• Opera: 2.82%
• Midori: 1.23%

As you can see – Chrome has grown massively in almost one year – largely at the expense of Firefox which has seen its share tumble from a mighty 86.90% to 55.52% in just under a year.

If we go full month-by-month breakdown we can see the adoption of Chome happens incredibly rapid, with each milestone bolstering its market share: -

2009

• June: 2.64%
• July: 3.39%
• August: 8.72%
• September: 11.56%
• October: 20.02%
• November: 21.75%
• December: 30.77% [first beta released]

2010

• January: 31.49%
• February: 33.02%
• March: 34.69%
• April: 36.53%
• May 1st – 23rd: 37.36%

Where now?
My disclaimer still rings true: These stats only represent Linux-based visitors to OMG! Ubuntu! and certainly are not flawless – Chromium, for example, is not counted as separate from Google Chrome in analytics. They do, nonetheless, give an insight into the meteoric rise of Chrome/ium and the seemingly dramatic fall of Firefox.

With Chromium set to be the default browser in Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition – and potentially the default browser in Ubuntu 11.04 Desktop – Chrome’s market share on Linux can only rise.

Original Article

[lotuseclat79]

Maybe SWIron is more popular on Linux than Chromium, eh?

-- Tom

[chronomatic]

Originally Posted by lotuseclat79

Maybe SWIron is more popular on Linux than Chromium, eh?

-- Tom

SWIron is nothing but Chromium and is mostly a Windows thing anyway (since Windows builds of Chromium are harder to come by).

At any rate, I think the numbers speak for themselves. Chromium is gaining massive share on Linux because it is simply a better browser than FF right now. It's much faster, much lighter, has a lot of key add-ons, and is more secure by default.

[Trespasser]

At least from my experience, Chrome/ium does not play nicely with flash intensive games like any from Facebook. I get a lot of tearing when I try to scroll down or up on those type of pages. With Firefox no such tearing. Chrome/ium may be gaining quite a following on the Linux side of the line but as it stands right now I won't be switching from Firefox any time in the foreseeable future. To be fair, Chrome/ium has improved immensely since its initial release.

Later....

[linuxforall]

In Ubuntu, Opera and Chrome are the only two browsers that lets me surf with speed and peace of mind, even though Opera is still beta and so is Chrome, they work far better than FF, sites load in an instant, hitting back buttons creates no issues, FF just hangs after few sites and starts slowing down big time.

[steve161]

I hate to rehash things, and I know you are an opera fan (as I am, opera community member) but I still am not noticing any speed difference between opera and firefox. Do you have the link (deb) for the beta? I would love to give it a spin. Ubuntu Lucid.

Edit: Please disregard the "A vs. B" part of the post as it is useless and probably violates forum rules. I would still like a link to the deb.

[linuxforall]

Originally Posted by steve161

I hate to rehash things, and I know you are an opera fan (as I am, opera community member) but I still am not noticing any speed difference between opera and firefox. Do you have the link (deb) for the beta? I would love to give it a spin. Ubuntu Lucid.

Edit: Please disregard the "A vs. B" part of the post as it is useless and probably violates forum rules. I would still like a link to the deb.

Hi Steve,

How about Chrome? You don't see any difference between Chrome and FF?

Here is the link to Opera's latest deb, its always there at Opera desktop blog where you can find updates.

http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/

http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/snaps....6340_i386.deb

http://snapshot.opera.com/unix/snaps...6340_amd64.deb

[Beavenburt]

Chrome is a simple fast browser but I agree with trespasser, flash performance is patchy and ramps up cpu on my machine. Whether thats a flash issue or Chrome I don't know, but until it's fixed chrome isn't an option full time for me.

[lotuseclat79]

Originally Posted by chronomatic

SWIron is nothing but Chromium and is mostly a Windows thing anyway (since Windows builds of Chromium are harder to come by).

At any rate, I think the numbers speak for themselves. Chromium is gaining massive share on Linux because it is simply a better browser than FF right now. It's much faster, much lighter, has a lot of key add-ons, and is more secure by default.

Hi chronomatic,

Your assumption that SRWare Iron is nothing but Chromium is not correct. While it is true that SRWare Iron is based on Chromium, they are not identical.

You should visit SRWare Iron's web pages and look at the one that compares the differences, i.e. Chrome vs Iron. From the data, it looks like SRWare Iron has less of a footprint than Chrome with regard to leaking information about the browser.

-- Tom

[Ocky]

It seems there are minor differences, the most notable being lack of an adblocker in Chromium. See here:- https://answers.launchpad.net/chromi...question/91457

[steve161]

Here is the link to Opera's latest deb, its always there at Opera desktop blog where you can find updates.

Thanks, linuxforall

[Trespasser]

Originally Posted by Ocky

It seems there are minor differences, the most notable being lack of an adblocker in Chromium. See here:- https://answers.launchpad.net/chromi...question/91457

There is an adblocker for Chromium....
https://chrome.google.com/extensions...impefifgplgmge

I've tried it. It works fine.

The only other problem I have with Chromium, besides the video tearing on flash intensive pages, is the option to delete cache on closing the browser. Chromium wants to delete everything...including cookies that I want to keep (like my Homepage for example).

Later...

[Eice]

Something I think all SRWare Iron users need to be aware of.

<mgreenblatt> Iron.. why not propose a patch based on preprocessor
              defines that disables the sections you dislike without
              forking the code?
<mgreenblatt> (assuming such a thing doesn't already exist)
<Iron> because a fork will bring a lot of publicity to my person and
       my homepage
<Iron> that means: a lot of money too ;)
<Kmos> rotflol
<Iron> what means rotful?
<mgreenblatt> Iron.. you're a large corporation that can dedicate the
              time to support a fork of something as complicated as
              chromium?
<Kmos> Iron: google about it
<Iron> yes there is enough time to support it
<jamessan> heh, you're expecting to make lots of money from making a
           fork of chromium? that's quite amusing
<Iron> i dont take money for my fork
<Iron> but i have adsense on my page ;)
<Iron> a lot of visitor -> a lot of clicka > a lot of money ;)
<Kmos> and do you think google should support your fork
<Kmos> lol
<mgreenblatt> Iron.. it's always good to have dreams ;-)
<Iron> we are here in germany
<Iron> the press will love my fork
<Iron> i talked to much journalists already

http://neugierig.org/software/chromi...9/12/iron.html

[mack_guy911]

the problem i face with chromium is they share proxy gnome if i set socks 4 and http proxy both then chrome wont work

but that in ubuntu not fedora

[Eice]

Originally Posted by mack_guy911

the problem i face with chromium is they share proxy gnome if i set socks 4 and http proxy both then chrome wont work

but that in ubuntu not fedora

Set independent proxy settings in Chromium using a command switch.

--proxy-server:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:1234