Chrome Wasn't Built in a DayGoogle launches its first-ever TV ad campaign to get you to try its browser.
Posted Wednesday, May 13, 2009, at 7:02 AM ET
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StumbleUponWhat's more, power users already have a default a browser—Firefox, whose share of the market hovers at around 20 percent. (Apple's Safari has a market share of about 8 percent, with Chrome at less than 1.5 percent.) But Chrome lacks several important features—browser add-ons or the ability to bookmark a full window of tabs into a single folder—that Firefox users will need before considering switching. This is Chrome's dilemma, then: Its best features don't turn the heads of ordinary users, but it's not yet good enough to appeal to the very users who might be most amenable to giving it a look.
Chrome's problems have been complicated by Microsoft. When Google's browser made its debut, it was competing against a version of Internet Explorer that hadn't been given a meaningful update in ages. Earlier this year, Microsoft released IE 8, which is actually a pretty great browser. It's not as fast as Chrome, but it has pretty much every major feature you'd want in a browser—and even some that Chrome lacks. Internet Explorer, for instance, color codes the tabs you've got open, which helps you determine, at a glance, which pages are related to which. IE 8 already has a larger market share than Chrome, and as it begins streaming into new computers, it will surely become the world's dominant browser. At least the world will be using decent software.
So how do you convince people to use a new Web browser? History suggests an easy answer: You strong-arm them. In the 1990s, Microsoft, desperate to vanquish the threat it saw in Netscape, bundled Internet Explorer into every copy of Windows. Within a few years' time, IE had become the most common way the world got online, to the point that Microsoft earned itself an antitrust charge in the process. (Netscape's market share is now 0.82 percent.) Apple does something similar. Safari comes bundled with the Mac OS, and last year the company even tried to use its auto-update program to surreptitiously feed Windows users a copy of Safari. As a result, Safari now enjoys a nearly double-digit share of the browser market.
Google doesn't make a desktop operating system with which to bundle its browser, so it can't easily force people to use Chrome. Instead, the search company will have to emulate Firefox's marketing strategy. Of all the major browsers, only Firefox's growth has come without monopolistic leverage. Over the last few years, the open-source browser has sailed the viral currents of the Web, finding adherents one user at a time. Its growth has been remarkable, and it shows no sign of slowing, either. Perhaps Google can find some solace in this; Firefox didn't need snappy TV ads to win its fan base. It just needed snappy code and a plucky image. Firefox did well not just because it offered a better browser but because it seemed to offer a reprieve from Microsoft's hegemonic complacency. Many who switched to Firefox were glad that someone was working to build innovation back into the Web.
But that audience is still there. And if they're like me, they're disaffected—I switched to Firefox early this decade, and I'm ready to change to something else. As even many of its fans admit, Firefox has grown lethargic as it ages; it's slow, prone to crashing, and doesn't seem to add new features as fast as its rivals do. Here's your target, Google: If you want Chrome to hit it big, aim to get Firefox fanatics on your side.
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