Recent reports indicate that Google Chrome now absorbs nearly 30% of the web browser market share worldwide (source). Its main competitors are Internet Explorer with a little over 52% all versions included, and Firefox with now less than 12%.

In fact, if you exclude Chinese web users (who are usually stuck with old pirated versions of Windows and awful IE-based browsers) the numbers are even more impressive:
1. Google Chrome: > 52%
2. Internet Explorer: > 15%
3. Firefox: > 15%
4. Safari: > 9%
(source)

Things have changed a lot over the past 10 years and it's impressive to realize how much Chrome has changed our browsing habits. What is your opinion on the subject? Do you use Google Chrome yourself? What is the best web browser?

 

[Adeka]

Firefox because it has better extensions. Google removed them from the chrome store

 

[tony_2018]

How were you able to determine the % after factoring out the Chinese users? Its cool that Google is making its way to the top, wish them the best as they are always trying to make progress in advancing there company and not sit idle.

 

[optikalsaint]

I manage four different web properties for clients that receive over 1.5m visitors a month and on each of those sites Chrome makes up 60-65% of the users. On one site Internet Explorer only has a 7% user share. This has been an ongoing trend I have seen on all of my client's properties for the past couple years. I wonder how these metrics were calculated?

 

[DarkFlare69]

People say chrome eats RAM. I only have 8GB and have never noticed a difference between chrome and IE. IF it does consume more, it's definitely worth it, because IE is slow as a motherfucker.

 

[Clydefrosch]

i only use chrome for multiple accounts on tumblr...
even though its usually quicker to start and show me an empty tab, the moment i start both browsers at the same time and have the same website as startpage, firefox still ends up having the website opened before chrome... but i guess decades of people just mindlessly repeating ff is slow and bloated while chrome isnt, despite eating just as much ram...

the only problem on ff is the memory leaking thing. though that only happens to problematicdegrees to me on certain websites like pixiv

I manage four different web properties for clients that receive over 1.5m visitors a month and on each of those sites Chrome makes up 60-65% of the users. On one site Internet Explorer only has a 7% user share. This has been an ongoing trend I have seen on all of my client's properties for the past couple years. I wonder how these metrics were calculated?

just wondering, does that include mobile chrome? cause on android, its definitely miles ahead of ff

 

[Joe88]

just wondering, does that include mobile chrome? cause on android, its definitely miles ahead of ff

I only use chrome on android since a few years ago ff wasnt that good but ff has improved alot (and the only browser that still supports flash)

 

[koim]

Web browers

feels like a letter disappeared in the vastness of the world wide web

 

[tony_2018]

People say chrome eats RAM. I only have 8GB and have never noticed a difference between chrome and IE. IF it does consume more, it's definitely worth it, because IE is slow as a motherfucker.

Another example is the chromebook, it doesn't have badass specs but it works. Got one for my mom.

 

[q9p]

People say chrome eats RAM. I only have 8GB and have never noticed a difference between chrome and IE. IF it does consume more, it's definitely worth it, because IE is slow as a motherfucker.

And people do not understand there are several reasons why Chrome/Chromium uses so much resources. Essentially, in programming, you are able to choose if your program wants to be fast in the processor or small in the RAM. You truly cannot get both experiences compact into one program. That is why Chrome is able to process things a lot more quickly than a lot of other browsers. The RAM serves as a way of storing webpages and being able to be quickly accessed. If that wasn't the case, and Google decided to modify Chrome to allocate less RAM, then you would have a browser which writes more the processor. Possibly causing a slower experience, which is what you face in browsers such as Internet Explorer. Microsoft has improved performance of their new web browser, which hopefully delivers a more faster experience.

Chrome does use a bit of RAM, but it isn't a lot compared to how much memory our devices have. Phones are now running 2GB and higher, computers are now being served more RAM, and better processors are also being served too. It would be a whole different scenario to write a complaint to Google if they designed a browser back in the 2000's when it was a treat to have a 1GB stick of RAM.

 

[VinsCool]

Chrome User, only 3GB of RAM, no problem in my end

 

[Deleted User]

-snip-

I find Firefox to usually be faster than Chrome on my laptop, almost everything on Firefox loads in (what feels like) only a few seconds while Chrome would usually take a few minutes or so for me, but on school laptops, the opposite would usually be true. Same with my Mom's laptop and my Dad's computer, it seems.

 

[Foxi4]

All the "Chrome is eating all my RAM" nonsense never affected me, in fact, Firefox always used more than Chrome and was infinitely less stable. Chrome wins in my book hands down, its integration with services and add-ons is unbeatable and I have zero concerns with Google collecting data since that collected data provides me with a better, user-targeted browsing experience. It's fast, it's efficient, it's the best browser out there at present.

 

[jDSX]

Firefox and Midori all the way.

Midori is a lightweight browser fyi

 

[q9p]

I find Firefox to usually be faster than Chrome on my laptop, almost everything on Firefox loads in (what feels like) only a few seconds while Chrome would usually take a few minutes or so for me, but on school laptops, the opposite would usually be true. Same with my Mom's laptop and my Dad's computer, it seems.

There a bit of variables that could be played. One for instance could be extensions used, a possible memory leak, weak processor, tabs, etc. If you have kept up with the development cycle of Firefox, you may have heard they implemented `Electrolysis` into their nightly releases. In lesser term, this is able to provide a much more faster experience. It is interesting technology that I do not think Google has implemented yet into their Chromium releases.

Sometimes, in the experiences I have seen others have used Firefox, it has always ended up being tweaked in order to get better speeds. Whether that would be setting pipelines to true, enabling hardware acceleration, using a nightly release, or using an open source solution for graphic drivers. None of these options should be required for a home-end user who may not know how to technically navigate a Google search page to find the results that they are looking for.

 

[Catastrophic]

I've used both Firefox and Chrome extensively and find there to be very little difference between them. Both surf the web and support Ad Block Plus and that's all I need. Currently using Chrome, though.

 

[ihaveahax]

I've used both Firefox and Chrome extensively and find there to be very little difference between them. Both surf the web and support Ad Block Plus and that's all I need. Currently using Chrome, though.

I would recommend trying out uBlock Origin (or just uBlock if Origin is not available) since it uses less power than AdBlock/Plus.

 

[q9p]

I've used both Firefox and Chrome extensively and find there to be very little difference between them. Both surf the web and support Ad Block Plus and that's all I need. Currently using Chrome, though.

I would recommend trying out uBlock Origin (or just uBlock if Origin is not available) since it uses less power than AdBlock/Plus.

Adding onto these posts:

These are the averages for each extension to handle a request in the chrome.webRequest.onBeforeRequest handler. (Benchmark Reference)

Adblock Plus

    ABP> onBeforeRequest: 0.425 ms (9141 samples)
    ABP> onBeforeRequest: 0.423 ms (9230 samples)
    ABP> onBeforeRequest: 0.423 ms (9233 samples)
    ABP> onBeforeRequest: 0.423 ms (9310 samples)
    ABP> onBeforeRequest: 0.423 ms (9390 samples)
    ABP> onBeforeRequest: 0.423 ms (9477 samples)
    ABP> onBeforeRequest: 0.423 ms (9524 samples)
    ABP> onBeforeRequest: 0.422 ms (9687 samples)
    ABP> onBeforeRequest: 0.421 ms (9704 samples)
    ABP> onBeforeRequest: 0.421 ms (9861 samples)

uBlock

    uBlock> onBeforeRequest: 0.131 ms (8664 samples)
    uBlock> onBeforeRequest: 0.131 ms (8763 samples)
    uBlock> onBeforeRequest: 0.131 ms (8839 samples)
    uBlock> onBeforeRequest: 0.130 ms (8914 samples)
    uBlock> onBeforeRequest: 0.131 ms (8988 samples)
    uBlock> onBeforeRequest: 0.131 ms (9033 samples)
    uBlock> onBeforeRequest: 0.130 ms (9192 samples)
    uBlock> onBeforeRequest: 0.130 ms (9206 samples)
    uBlock> onBeforeRequest: 0.129 ms (9324 samples)
    uBlock> onBeforeRequest: 0.129 ms (9329 samples)

Here is an image provided that that show how much Adblock Plus consumes over uBlock. Those statistics were taken by 60 pages on high traffic websites. -- uBlock is a lot more memory friendly and is a good alternative. There have been alternatives like it before. HTTP Switchboard is a lot similar to what uBlock. But, HTTP Switchboard is not as user friendly. So there have been alternatives out before uBlock, but user friendly is what a lot of people look for.

Plus, there are active measurements in the uBlock community that makes for users who are concerned about their security. An example of this is that uBlock prevents WebRTC from leaking the home IP address of someone using a VPN.

 

[Deleted User]

IE and Opera. I used to like FireFox but then they changed the layout so I went back to IE which has tons of compatibility issues but is sadly the only browser that still has a UI that makes sense.

 

[q9p]

IE and Opera. I used to like FireFox but then they changed the layout so I went back to IE which has tons of compatibility issues but is sadly the only browser that still has a UI that makes sense.

Firefox has extensions that make it where you can have Firefox operate like the older versions.

 

[Joe88]

IE and Opera. I used to like FireFox but then they changed the layout so I went back to IE which has tons of compatibility issues but is sadly the only browser that still has a UI that makes sense.

you can modify ff to have a decent ui again