For the last few years, it’s been a two man race between Internet Explorer and Firefox. The two web browsers have been the heavyweights in terms of the most popular browsers that people use on the net.

That’s all starting to change, thanks to Google…

Enter Chrome

The Google Chrome Browser has been gaining popularity every month. It’s not just the bleeding edge tech geeks that are using it. It’s starting to go mainstream.

It also helps that Google is putting a lot of resources and money into the browser. They even put together a great speed test video showing Chrome’s speed vs. a potato gun and other fast objects.

I have even switched to using Chrome and Firefox as my two main web browsers, with IE mostly for compatibility testing. And I’m not one that takes changing browsers lightly.

The numbers don’t lie

Sitepoint’s Current Browser Market Share and Trends post shows that Chrome is up to 8+ percent in worldwide use, and is gaining almost 1% per month in adoption. It is the “mover and shaker” of the browser market.

But you also have to look at the demographic of people using browsers to judge the impact of each browser for your target audience. Practical Ecommerce’s article on Adopting New Technologies shows that for a technology site, Chrome can account for up to 24% of the web browsers viewing the site, while on a traditional non-tech ecommerce site, only 2% of all requests were using Chrome.

w3Counter’s Global Web Stats also show the rise of Chrome.

Our stats

Here is a look at the past 30 days of web browser stats to our main website:

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For our site, Safari and Chrome make up a larger than normal amount of visits. That means we have to take 4 browsers into account when we make design changes.

Busy ecommerce site we host

Here’s a look at the browser stats from a busy ecommerce site we host:

(click image to enlarge)

As you can see, for this merchant, IE, Firefox, and Safari are the big 3, but Chrome is still at 5+ percent.

Know your site’s stats

All of the above data does not matter. What does matter is *YOUR* site’s trends and *YOUR* visitors. Find out what the major web browsers are that are using your site, and make sure you TEST, TEST, TEST your site with these browsers regularly, and especially any time you make a design change.

But even if Chrome makes up a small percentage of your visitors now, don’t neglect this web browser. Download a copy for your computer, and periodically view your site, your cart, your blog, etc… in all 3 web browsers to make sure it looks as you would like (and more importantly, that it looks good to your visitors and customers).

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