Turns out that Google might consider a similar approach says OStatic. The search giant isn’t ruling out deals with OEMs to get Google’s Chrome browser pre-installed on computers, and knowing how Google has worked in the past, they’d likely pay a pretty penny for the privilege. As it stands today, around 88% of Mozilla’s revenue comes from Google payments that ensure Google is the default browser search engine in Firefox. Google can afford to make those payments because the cost is offset, and possibly exceeded, by the advertising revenues created in this situation.

On a related note: I just checked our last 30-day history of browsers used to view the site. I suspected they would have fallen off dramatically and be around 1%. Surprise, surprise: Chrome was used for 4.78% of all visits here in the last month, even more than Opera. Maybe Google should hold off on spending money to spread Chrome?