Google’s Chrome takes third place in browser market share

Google’s Chrome browser appears to be expanding in both features and users day by day. It’s a popular solution for those who are using Windows, and is currently in beta on Linux and Mac OS X. Now, it’s being reported that the browser has overtaken Safari in market share.

According to Computerworld, the release of the Mac and Linux betas for the software helped to push it into third place, past Apple’s Safari browser. The week of December 6-12 saw Chrome hitting 4.4%  share, an increase of 0.4%, beating out Safari, which held 4.37%; to show how important the browser hitting beta on Mac OS X was, before the release. It was said that the split between people who are switching to Chrome was evenly divided between Safari and Firefox. But interestingly, the jump was even bigger on Linux; after the beta was released, the browser saw a 6.34% of market share, which is a fairly substantial increase from the previous 3.81%.

The executive vice president of Net Applications, Vince Vizzaccaro stated, “I believe Linux will be the more intriguing arena to watch. Firefox currently dominates browser usage on Linux the way that IE dominates Windows systems and Safari dominates Mac systems. With the emergence of Chrome, I’ll be curious to see if Chrome will be to Firefox on Linux what Firefox is to IE on Windows… a forceful competitor.” It will be interesting to see how Google’s browser does on Linux, as it appears to show the most room for growth.