Apparently Google Chrome is now the world’s most popular web browser. Ho-hum.
Google also has the most popular search engine, but “most popular” doesn’t necessarily mean “best”. Just ask 1990. Some of you might remember that Milli Vanilli won a Grammy award that year. Sheer populism is a mistake we often make in our modern take on democracy, but there’s a reason the Founding Fathers instituted the Electoral College (not to mention checks and balances).
Admittedly, Chrome is one of the few Google products that might actually be worth the hype, but in general, they seem to have three or four misses for every hit. I think the competition from Google in a number of those markets has been good for Microsoft and has forced them to innovate at a faster pace than they’ve traditionally done, which is better for businesses and consumers, but all these numbers tell me is something we already knew– Microsoft’s artificial dominance in the browser market ended long ago.
Now Microsoft has to compete on a fair playing field, and if you ask me, that means consumers win no matter how this second browser war shakes out.
