December 29, 2009 by Matt Thomas
Despite claims from some that it’s not as versatile as competitors like Firefox, the Google Chrome web browser has been gaining supporters steadily since its launch earlier this year, thanks to its speedy performance and reliability. However, it seems the slow steady groundswell of support is about to turn into a deluge in the next few weeks and months.
The reason is that Google has decided to take advantage of their unique market position by leveraging the Google homepage – incidentally, the most visited page on the internet – to advertise it. The advert will run above and to the right of the search bar, with the tagline, ‘a faster way to browse the web’. This is incredibly significant as it marks the first time any ad has been displayed on the Google homepage, and a significant diversion from Google’s stated policy of keeping their homepage as clean as possible.
However, seeing as this is Google, it’s not as simple as slapping an ad on the homepage, the ad will display in different ways depending on the user and importantly the browser they are using. Chrome users will be shown nothing, whilst Firefox users will be greeted with a subtle Google pack link. IE users on the other hand (at whom this is really aimed, let’s face it) will be shown the full advert. Either way, expect Chrome usage to skyrocket in the coming weeks.
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