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>It's not as if people switched just because it had Google branding. Everyone switched because it was quantifiably better.

The knowledgeable minority, maybe. _Most_ people switched because Google pushed it like a piece of adware. Bundling it with other software installers, prompting you to use it whenever you use Google search or other products, and bundling it with an OS.

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If that was the deciding factor we'd still be using IE.

No we wouldn't.

Microsoft was legally prevented from doing that, remember?

Why Google has been allowed to get away with it I have no idea.

> Microsoft was legally prevented from doing that, remember?

> Why Google has been allowed to get away with it I have no idea.

Wasn't Microsoft only legally prevented from doing that due agreements made when they settled their antitrust case?

There needs to be another anti-trust case against Google, especially for the cases where it's used its monopoly in search to push its other products like Chrome, since that shouldn't even be controversial under current antitrust interpretations.

This probably does explain why a lot of people tried it, but it doesn't explain why they kept on using it. Often, ad campaigns cause churn as people try a product but bounce off of it.

I don't think most average web users do a comparison of browsers. They pick one (or get told to use one) and stick with it because for their use cases, there isn't much differences between the browser anyway.

They probably aren't keen observers, but if the browser is slow or confusing and they get annoyed, maybe they wouldn't install it next time? It's not like people are completely oblivious to quality.

But we're just comparing impressions and I'd bet there is better data out there.

Most people I've ever met, have found it to be faster and easier to use. But yes, a lot of older people still use IE because that's the default