Google's Chrome is poised to become the second-biggest Web browser in the world before the end of the year, according to StatCounter. If trends as measured by the Ireland-based Web statistics firm's analytics tools hold up, Chrome will pass Mozilla's Firefox sometime in December and trail only Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) in global average user share.

Computerworld's Gregg Keizer looked at the trend lines in user growth for the three browsers as presented by StatCounter (graph below) and saw Chrome growing in popularity at about double the rate as projected over 12 months that Firefox and IE were each losing share since January of this year.

Firefox started 2010 with about 31 percent of user share and was sitting at 26.8 percent as of last Wednesday, according to StatCounter. Chrome, meanwhile, rocketed up from just over 15 percent user share in January to 23.6 percent in September. That puts the two browsers on a collision course to swap spots in the overall user share rankings when (or more precisely, if) Chrome climbs to about 25 percent of user share later this year and meets Firefox on its way down.

IE—owning 46 percent of user share in January and less than 42 percent as October begins—would be next in Google's sights, though a Chrome takeover of the top spot wouldn't happen until next August or so, extrapolating StatCounter's numbers outwards. If Chrome and IE both maintain their exact current trends in user share growth, Chrome would meet IE at about the 35 percent user share mark in the late summer of 2012 before taking over the No. 1 browser spot.