Google Chrome Passes Safari to Nab Third in Browser Race

Just last week, Google finally released official betas for its Chrome browser for Mac and Linux. That release had a nice effect on market share for the browser, propelling it past Apple’s Safari and into third place.

Of course, third place — according to Net Applications — means 4.4 percent market share (Safari’s (Safari) market share is 4.37 percent), but that’s still 0.4 percentage points higher than Chrome’s (Chrome) stats for November. The releases for Mac and Linux (linux), plus the official Chrome Extensions rollout, might be enough for the browser to finally gain some traction against competitors Firefox (Firefox) and Internet Explorer (Internet Explorer).

In terms of platforms, Chrome’s biggest area of growth actually came on the smallest platform — Linux. Linux represents an interesting opportunity for Chrome because its browser space is virtually dominated by Firefox (Yes, I know Konquerer and Opera (Opera) are alternatives, but Firefox is far and away the biggest browser for Linux). That means that it is the area most ripe for growth.

Indeed, Chrome usage almost doubled from 3.81 percent in November to 6.34 percent last week. Google’s (Google) Chrome OS, which is based on the Linux kernel and is essentially a system-wide version of the Chrome browser, is scheduled to appear on netbooks and smartbooks next year.

by Christina Warren