January 4, 2009 by Matt Thomas
The majority of IE defectors (about 66% says TG daily) go to Firefox. This is because the browser enjoys strong brand recognition and is known as the browser of choice for the clued up surfer. Whether this is true or not is another thing, though the perception is there.
This is why Google is recommending it along with Chrome as the IE alternative. If they were to just recommend that users switch to Chrome they’d have a harder time, people don’t know it yet, they don’t have friends who use it, they haven’t heard anything about it, therefore they are less likely to switch. For the time being this isn’t a problem, anything that hurts Explorer is good.
When Explorer has been cut down to size Chrome is in an excellent position to take the reins, most likely from Firefox – who aren’t exactly a Google competitor anyway. Not only is it borrowing the IE trick of getting itself installed with many new computers, it has something that IE never had, a huge, practically all encompassing platform to really push it’s browser – I’m speaking, of course, about the Google search engine, which it has already started using to flog the browser.
Of course it won’t be this simple, I daresay that Microsoft have a game-changing idea or two in them yet, but the momentum is certainly swinging towards Google. At the very least, the days of IE domination are numbered.
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