January 20, 2009 by Mark Isle
Google Chrome has been performing well so far; it got out of beta only 100 days after being first introduced and, even at this early stage, boasts a user base that’s 10 million strong. Now that it’s an official player, Chrome is eligible to be bundled with new computers and it soon will be. Basically, the browser is set to go from strength to strength in 2009, this is bad news for Firefox.
Right after Google Chrome came out of its beta stage, Firefox was unceremoniously dropped as Google’s default browser, losing its place in the Google pack download bundle, and generally being resoundingly replaced by Chrome. This has led to many predicting a rocky future for the browser.
Firefox is still the second best performing browser available, behind only Internet Explorer (it’s not really a fair comparison as IE is artificially propped up by being tied to Windows). However, around 88 percent of its revenue comes straight from Google, in payment for using the search engine as its default and as a percentage of revenue from the resulting click-through ads. Essentially they are almost completely dependant on a company that is now a direct competitor.
Their agreement has been extended through till 2011 though, with Chrome’s star on the rise and no more marketing from Google, it’s hard to see anything other than Firefox fading as Chrome takes over as number two browser, maybe even better.
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