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How Badly Will Chrome Hurt Firefox?
By Mark Evans | September 3, 2008
If you listen to the fine folks at Google, they universally love Firefox. In fact, many of them agonized over Google’s decision to create its own browser because they didn’t want to damage the scrappy open-source rival that has given IE fits. (Wired has the inside story of Chrome’s creation.)
Nevertheless, Google decided it had no choice but to develop Chrome. Now the question is how badly will Chrome damage Firefox. Will Firefox users abandon ship because Chrome is simply shiny and new? Or will Chrome be a novelty for Firefox users who love the ability to personalize Firefox more than Chrome’s no-frills look and feel.
The other consideration is financial given referral revenue from Google accounted for more than 80% of Mozilla’s $66.8-million revenue in 2006. While the deal was recently extended to 2011, Firefox could get less revenue if a lot of Firefox users moved to Chrome.
My sense is Chrome will hurt Firefox but it will likely be more of a flesh wound than a major injury. This means you may see Firefox’s share of the browser market retreat to 15% from 20%.
Internet Explorer could be more vulnerable even though IE8 Beta 2 has been getting good reviews. Many IE users, who would never consider using Firefox, may be more enthusiastic about Chrome because, after all, it’s made from Google, the world’s leading search engine. By giving Chrome a no-frills, user-friendly interface, it may attract more attention.
For the sake of argument, let’s say Firefox retreats to 15% and Microsoft falls back to 55%. That could leave Chrome with about 20% of the browser market.
Does that seem reasonable or am I being too bullish on Chrome’s appeal?
More: There’s no lack of people who have tried Chrome, including Walter Mossberg, who liked it but not that much; and Alec Saunders, who suggests that Chrome “in the hard light of day I’d say the emperor has no clothes”.
Technorati Tags: chrome, Firefox, Google
Topics: Browsers, Google, Uncategorized |
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:44 am
I have to admit I was a little sleepy last night…I got word of the download and installed it, but wondered why Firefox was releasing a new browser with only a few new mods. It works well out-of-the-box and the new tab function is nice. I only realized this morning that I had installed a browser from Google. I got duped. I’m not certain what this says about me, the internet or the exploitation of subconscious marketing by Google.
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:25 am
It’s clear that Chrome (at least at this stage) is more an engineering proof-of-concept and vehicle for introducing some revised thinking and a new way of handling JavasScript.
There are sufficient UI oddities that will cause Chrome (in its current state) to be either loathed by the mass market or loved. Confusing iconography (a ‘new page/document’ icon) munges a selection of the contents of standard application menus (new/edit/view commands) into one contextual dialog pulldown, some items of which could arguably best live in the ‘wrench’ menu and vice versa.
Given the type of people raving about it, Chrome overall appears to be designed to suit a very different audience: short-sighted casual users. With its relatively giant fonts particularly in the search bar, but also the default type scaling in page content, to me the browser feels graphically oversized and clunky.
Tabs within the window frame are quite elegant, may be arguably suitable within the Windows world where the space is reserved for the process/application name + close commands but certainly out of place (and not at all trivial to implement) in Apple’s OS X. That said, kudos to Google’s engineers for solving the problem of indicating that the hide, zoom, and close buttons at top-right are tied to the Chrome parent process and will exit all tab processes.
I expect Google will see a large spike of new users this week followed by a substantial drop in the geek world. Corporate and baby-boomer home users will be this browser’s long-term bread and butter.
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:32 am
Stupid poll. How Much of the Browser Market Will Chrome Attract By What Date?
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:24 am
Mark,
Great post. My feeling is that a lot of Firefox users made the switch because of the ability to use add-ons. I am not even going to bother downloading Chrome until it can support these. So short term, probably little impact. But longer term … whole different argument. Google controls so many popular web applications that they will have a leg up on any other browser in terms of smooth integration.
My bet is that this will be huge in 2 years. Remember how MSFT killed Netscape? I think this is the open-source equivalent.
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:27 am
Google seems to roll out “big” things then lets them flail in the breeze. Gchat, Grandcentral etc., I don’t see Chrome being any different. It takes tremendous focus and a big dedicated team to ‘do’ a browser. If anything I see FF getting better by using some of the Google source to help with memory footprint etc.
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:27 am
Dave:
I don’t think it’s a stupid poll but I do agree that adding a time element is a good ideas. Thanks for the suggestion - the poll has now been updated.
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Well I am hearing, from my neck of the woods in programming, that while everyone likes Chrome so far, they are all weary to switch from Firefox until Chrome can really put out some great addons. A lot of FireFox users love their addons and themes and until Chrome can put some out there, there is no reason to switch completely. It’s a novelty at the moment.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
[...] after the launch there was an initial flurry of interest. Mark Evans commented that a number of people had checked it out with some like Walter Mossberg liking it and others like [...]
September 17th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Among visitors to my Chrome site, looks like Google Chrome is slowly encroaching on poor Firefox. The little fox that captured our attention circling the Globe is now getting chomped by the big G.
September 17th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Among visitors to my Chrome site, looks like Google Chrome is slowly encroaching on poor Firefox. The little fox that captured our hearts circling the Globe is now getting stomped by the big G.