Back then, Google's Chrome was still an exciting new thing being discovered by many non-techies, fast and simple. Google seemed like a company dead set on being the good guys.
Things have muddled since, IMHO.
Yea this was pretty odd. Usually all the people around me are the last to switch, because they make their decisions based on "whichever thing they saw first or more prominently". In Chrome's case, I switched quite a while after most of my friends: they all saw Chrome marketed all over the place while I consciously enjoyed a Firefox feature or two that Chrome was lacking. I finally ended up switching when Firefox's incredible slowness made it too painful to keep using (this was around v3.5, I believe).