Here is another market. Pakistan, India's neighbor did similar thing three months back. Good to see that as internet penetrates this region it is with a good capable browser.<p><a href="http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-PK-monthly-201106-201108-bar" rel="nofollow">http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-PK-monthly-201106-201108-...</a>
I imagine IE is more the default browser when people buy PC's or laptops. FF and Chrome are browsers out of choice. I can't imagine lay people in India (my friends and relatives or people in my HR department) installing FF or wanting to check out other browsers. So it is remarkable that FF is #1.<p>Until other browsers can match FF's vimperator/pentadactyl, there's no way I can seriously consider moving. (I've tried Chrome, Opera and Safari)
I am intrigued to understand how StatCounter comes up with this graph. Do they have their own toolbars? Do they talk to ISPs? What is the demography of indian surfers who StatCounter have accounted for.<p>Without these parameters openly discussed this looks shady.
Although Opera started to deteriorate somewhere after version 10, trying to do too much instead of focusing on main browser things, I always scratch my head when I see how few people us it. It really is a nice browser.
Those are the kind of shares I like to see - multiple browsers all with a share of the market, so that it's impossible for any one company to dominate.
Not very surprising. I remember seeing full page ads for Chrome in major newspapers. I have also seen lot of word of mouth for Chrome and FF. (People asking friends, family members to try out Chrome or FF). I still remember the days when me and my friends used to install FF in all the browsing centers (not every one had broadband at that time) we visit when FF came out.
I am surprised to see the numbers. Not sure I should believe them because most of Indian corporates, including the IT service industry, which employs the largest chuck of IT people run on Windows and do now allow their employees installing any new browser. That is true for even the fancy startups like flipkart.com where my friend used to work till last month. So these numbers need to be verified.
Until a feature-complete NoScript alternative exists for Google Chrome or Opera, it's hard for me to switch. I like the security it provides, which is much more than blocking JavaScript nowadays.