Google Chrome Turns One: Has It Been a Success?

Posted by chadi in Google

Exactly one year ago today, the Google Chrome browser was launched to the world. And, in Google-like fashion, they took the unconventional route of announcing Chrome via comic book. Do you remember all of the discussion around Google’s decision to enter the browser market? Now, 365 days later, Google is commemorating Chrome’s first birthday with some impressive stats. To get the full picture of where Chrome stands today though, we need to look at all the numbers. The...

Exactly one year ago today, the Google Chrome browser was launched to the world. And, in Google-like fashion, they took the unconventional route of announcing Chrome via comic book. Do you remember all of the discussion around Google’s decision to enter the browser market?

Now, 365 days later, Google is commemorating Chrome’s first birthday with some impressive stats. To get the full picture of where Chrome stands today though, we need to look at all the numbers.

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The Chrome Road Ahead

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While Google’s commemorative blog post talks a great deal about birthday cakes and birthday balloons, the numbers-oriented company did reveal a plethora of interesting facts about the browser. Here is what Google shared:

“Since September 2, 2008, there have been:

– 51 developer releases, 21 beta releases or updates, and 15 stable releases or updates
– Over 20,600 bugs filed (4367 of them were duplicates, 3505 have been fixed, which leaves a whole lot left to go!)
– 11 external committers and bug editors, 46 external code contributors
– 50 Chrome Experiments
– 26 posts on the Google Chrome blog
– 12 Chrome Shorts, a collection of short films about Google Chrome
– A sequel to the comic in Japanese

More importantly, we’ve improved by over 150% on Javascript performance since our initial beta.”

Those numbers are impressive, but they’re almost entirely development-related. The stat that industry analysts, media, and early adopters care about though, is market share. So in 12 months, how much ground has Google made?

The answer: not much. According to stats from Market Share/Net Applications, Chrome only has 2.84% of the market, far behind Internet Explorer’s 66.87% or Firefox’s 22.98%.

Still, it’s only had a year, and it isn’t even officially out for Mac yet (disappointingly). And big developments, like the the Google/Sony deal to pre-load Chrome on Sony PCs are going to boost its market share.

More time is needed before we know whether Chrome was a smart project or a failed endeavor. Will Google push Chrome even harder as it fixes the bugs and makes it into a viable browsing alternative? Or will Google lose focus as it builds the related Google Chrome OS? Only time will tell.

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3. Google Chrome OS in Context of the Google Distribution Chain, Being a Cartoon With Roughly 11 Steps and a Guest Appearance of the MS Monster
4. First Google Chrome OS screenshots leaked? Update: it’s a fake
5. Google names Chrome OS compatriots, Dell noticeably absent