ThruIT

The gold standard in the browser world: Internet Explorer. Some of us may want to puke in our mouths hearing that, but its true, the statistics don’t lie and according to w3schools.com, last year IE accounted for an average of 57.88% of browsers. Of course Mozilla Firefox is next in the lead at 34% and the good news is this year so far we have seen Firefox increase by at least 10%.

We have all seen Google come out with great services and success of these can even be shown by the company’s stock price of 315.76 (up 5.18% even with the current market status). Chrome currently accounts for 3.1% of the market and that is just while it is in its beta stage. That is more then Apple’s Safari (2.7%), which has been released for a good deal of time now.

Many people, especially web developers, are sick and tired of the compatibility issues with Internet Explorer and are welcoming Chrome with open arms as another standards compliant browser. Now with word that Chrome may be leaving beta status soon, what should we expect? Hopefully some toolbars. For many people, that has been the only thing holding them back. But on the browser front, people switching to Chrome are going to have to switch from something.

Personally, I think the main reason IE holds such power right now is due to its loyal base of users who don’t know better and just use what is on their computer. These people will not switch unless they are shown the light.  As Gizmodo puts it:

“What does it take? Cash money. Many of you know that Google is the reason Firefox did so well in the first place: As far back as 2005, Google was paying major dollars to those who referred Firefox downloads that included the Google Toolbar. But Firefox never seems to have had the cash to buy its way to the PC makers’ desktops. The kind of payola that puts heinous crapware on Dells, HPs and other PCs will soon be put to work in the new browser war, one where Microsoft will for the first time have a serious threat on its home turf.”

Hopefully the combination of cash, simplicity, ease of use, and “new generation” clout will give Chrome the advantage it needs to beat Microsoft out of its thrown for the better good of…pardon the corniness… “webkind”.