Google Chrome Now the No. 1 Browser in the World
For one week in May 2012, StatCounter recorded more web traffic from Chrome than from Internet Explorer. The margin was small. Chrome accounted for 31.88 per cent of the traffic measured, compared with 31.47 per cent for Microsoft’s browser.
The length of that lead made the week worth watching. Chrome had briefly moved ahead before, but this time the advantage lasted through a complete weekly reporting period. The figures measured visits across participating websites, so they tell us about browsing activity rather than the number of people who installed each browser.
For anyone building a website at the time, the global figure told only part of the story. A business might still have had a large audience using Internet Explorer. Its own visitors’ browser choices were a better guide to where testing time would pay off.