Google’s quest for online domination shows no sign of abating after figures showed its Chrome product is now Britain's second most popular web browser.
Nearly one in four British internet users now use Google Chrome as their web browser just three years after it was launched.
It is now the second most popular browser, overtaking Mozilla’s Firefox and quickly gaining ground on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE), the current market leader.
According to new figures, Chrome accounts for 22 per cent of the British web market compared to 45 per cent for IE. Apple's Safari is number four with a nine per cent share.
Chrome is also the number three browser worldwide, with one in five users preferring it, according to Statcounter, a web metrics firm.
Chrome's growth comes on the back of Google's domination of the search engine market, which it is led for years.
IE’s market share is falling despite the programme being pre-installed on almost every computer sold in Britain.
Google said Chrome's surge in popularity could be explained by its speed, security and a new national advertising campaign. Chrome was the first Google product ever advertised on British television.
Lars Bak, the Google engineer responsible for Chrome, said the company’s aims was speed. He said users should “never be happy” with existing speed.
"Speed is a fundamental part of it, but it's also about the minimal design and the way it handles security,” he told The Guardian.
"If you as a user try a webpage and it feels snappy, it's really hard to go back (to a previous browser). It has shown that people spend more time interacting with the web."
He added: "Of course it gets harder to make substantial gains, but it's all healthy competition.
"From the beginning we wanted everybody to be fast, and now all browsers are fast.”
Bosses at the global search engine hope to capitalise on the popularity after senior executives last month disclosed a new Chromebook laptop, which would be based on its browser.
It will be made by Samsung and Acer but instead of having memory storage space, data will instead be stored online in a “cloud”.
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