How Chrome killed Internet Explorer – Guide
In just over 13 years, Google’s Chrome browser has gone from being a new project to the giant we know today. Today, Chrome is by far the most popular browser in the world for both desktop and mobile. You could even say that Chrome killed Internet Explorer. So how did Google accomplish this unbelievable feat in such a short time? Mainly, they did it starting from scratch. Microsoft, along with Mozilla and others, continued to build their browsers on legacy code. Google used some existing tools to create Chrome, but for the most part, its approach to a browser was completely new. When Google came on the scene, Microsoft hadn’t really given much thought to reinventing the browser experience. In fact, Internet Explorer worked the same way in 2008 and 1998. Google had plans to change all that. In the beginning, Chrome was meant to be an entire platform for exploring the web in a new way, not just a browser. These aspirations led Google to innovate in several important ways, reaching the highest share of the browser market in 2012. In this article, we’ll take a look at how Google rocketed Chrome to the top from 2008 to 2012. There were three main factors – the open source nature of Chromium, revolutionizing web browsing with extensions, and the rise of Android and Chromebooks. This article kicks off our series on the history of web browsers, celebrating Google’s 23rd anniversary on September 4, 2021.
2008: beta release
Google released the Chrome browser in beta on September 2, 2008. This was a very interesting time in technology. Smartphones were pretty new and apps weren’t really a big deal in 2008. Already looking to the future, Google built Chrome on top of the HTML layout engine, WebKit, which would support web apps like its popular Maps service . At the time the beta was released, Google did a comic book to explain why they created a new browser out of a sea of existing alternatives. The comic book itself is quite long, at 39 pages, but the first page gives a good synopsis of Google’s philosophy. In their minds, the browser experience was completely broken. People no longer used the internet just to access research articles for school, the web was a big place with content to consume. Perhaps the biggest unique advantage of Chrome in the beginning was the sandbox of separate browser tabs. Browser crash was quite common, especially in Internet Explorer. Sandboxing meant that if a tab crashed, the entire session wouldn’t stall with it. In fact, the separate tab sandbox was a move that looked to the future of the web, where apps would replace webpages as the primary tool for users. With that in mind, Google took the next big step in taking advantage of the browser space – in September 2008, the open source Chromium Project was launched. Not only was open source in vogue at the time, but it also attracted developer interest in Chrome as a project. Google knew it would need developers on board to accelerate up improvements in Chrome, as well as creating for your next gallery of extensions.
2009: Chrome OS and Extensions
In 2009, it was clear that Chrome was big business. That summer, Google announced that it was building a full-featured Chrome-based operating system, aptly named the ‘Chrome OS’. At the same time, users were increasingly converting to Chrome. As of July 2009, there were over 30 million people using Google’s new browser. A user base of 30 million in less than a year is incredible, certainly something never seen before in the browser wars. While Chrome OS and the growing user base were big news, they weren’t the biggest Chrome story in 2009. In December 2009, Google launched the extension gallery. Extensions were revolutionary at the time. This was the big turning point, where Google hoped to convince users that apps were the future of web browsing. Users and developers loved extensions. In just over a year, the extensions gallery had over 10,000 extensions and themes. Customization is deeply personal and people have embraced the idea of customizing the look and functionality of their browser. At the final of 2009, Chrome already had 5% market share. Although this number seems small, keep in mind that this is an entirely new product, fighting for competition in an established market. Themes and extensions, along with Chrome’s incredible speed thanks to sandboxing, were set to make even bigger gains in 2010.
2010: Monetization and the Chrome Web Store
With Chrome growing at an exponential rate, it was time for Google to start cashing in on its success. In August 2010, Google began charging developers $5 to publish their Chrome apps to the extensions gallery. This was a revenue opportunity and a safety measure. The $5 fee allowed Google to implement domain verification for all new apps submitted for publication. Throughout the year, Chrome continued to experience the biggest increase in users ever. Tripled from 40 million to 120 million over 2010, Google was legitimately threatening Microsoft’s top spot in browser market share. Perhaps the most interesting thing is that Microsoft hasn’t done much to prevent Chrome from rising to the top. Instead of adding new platform independents features, Microsoft focused on deeper integration with Windows in Internet Explorer 9. Unfortunately, most of these features IE9 added for Windows already existed in Chrome. There’s no doubt that if Microsoft released a truly redesigned version of IE in 2010, they would have at least delayed Chrome’s rise to number one.
Final note
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