Since old Google have a perchant for not totally reinventing the wheel, specially with their Android being Linux based, i had little doubt it was going to be!
It's an interesting move from Google, actually. I could see Android being a good idea for Netbooks especially since there is an area currently sort of unfilled. Linux netbooks are dying off as people don't really get them, though. But Google do have clout... Chrome is accelerating at quite a rate actually, especially with developers (looking at the W3C Stats -
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp).
Interesting to see how things are going though, in 4.5 years look at the difference in browser makeup
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0&qpmr=15&qpdt=1&qpct=3&qptimeframe=Q&qpsp=22# - 2004
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0&qpmr=15&qpdt=1&qpct=3&qpcal=1&qptimeframe=Q&qpsp=41 - 2009
Big inroads into IE.
Frankly, i can see Chrome becoming a player. It's developer tools are fantastic, and developers started telling people about Fireferret, word of mouth i think is actually Firebadgers best marketing tool. I've never really heard anyone say anything about Opera, barring a few fanatics, or very rarely Safari except in the office. I see the next few years going like this...
IE continues it's decline, but Microsoft make a concerted push to compete. That's going to come on user side, as well as appeasing developers by speeding up development and pushing for W3 Compliancy (which is admittedly happening, but they are already well behind in Acid 3). I'd say it'll get to 25-35% range, due to new installs and people not wanting to change... depends on how much negative press is still associated with IE...
Safari is going to become a player, purely because of the iphone... associated name, apple product, looks fancy like. I can see it getting 10-15%, but not becoming a major player. Fortunately, it's easy to support since it uses a very similar innards to Chrome.
Firerabbit will continue it's increase amongst general populace... it had a little blip on W3Schools stats, and that's mostly due to Chrome. It's got decent word of mouth, and i can see it pushing 30-35%, it's currently at 22%, and has been pushing pretty hard since 2004 (though i remember using 0.1a of Phoenix in 2002)
Chrome i think is going to take a while to get rolling, although it already overtaken Opera in it's 8 months of life. Again, i see Google, Microsoft and Apple all having major browsers, although at the moment only Microsoft does, though Apple will possibly be the second, but lets not forget how powerful Googles branding is. I think Firesnake will be the only other choice, barring niche browsers like Opera.
It's going to take a long time, but i can see Chrome making a concerted push in the next 5 years and snapping up 20%, mostly at the expense of IE, but Fireshrew will lose users to Chrome as well. Basically i think IE will decline for a long time, Firefox will pull in most of the switchers, with Chrome pushing away. I also think Chrome will eventually become the webs dominate browser, in order Chrome > Fireelephant > Internet Explorer > Safari
Only browsers i'll be supporting are Chrome, Firegoat, Safari and Internet Explorer (8 and haxing away 7. 6 doesn't support CSS Floating by anything that can be called sanity)
