Why do the majority of SSL cipher suite used CBC? I am looking at a wireshark capture of the cipher suites sent by my browser to the server during an SSL handshake; however, almost 90% of them use CBC, with 2 or 3 having GCM. 

Why is CBC most used? Is there a specific property that makes CBC preferred by web communications?

Also literature suggests that the non-feedback modes (e.g., counter mode) perform better in practice; however GCM shows up in only a few cipher suites.  Any ideas why?
Historically, CBC was for long the dominant block cipher mode, but in recent years there's been a slow but firm move away from it, based on two trends:


The move toward authenticated encryption as the "go-to" ciphers for practical applications;
A reevaluation of the merits of CTR-based modes over CBC, driven by a variety of factors like:


The proliferation of attacks against CBC-based ciphersuites;
The simplicity and performance of CTR.



So you see a lot of CBC because it was the king for a long time, and it's only going away slowly.  This blog entry by Cloudfare has graphs of the SSL cipher suites they're seeing and shows AES-GCM gradually gaining over AES-CBC.

Two references I've found useful:


Phillip Rogaway, "Evaluation of Some Blockcipher
Modes of Operation"
Chris J. Mitchell, "Error Oracle Attacks on CBC Mode:
Is There a Future for CBC Mode Encryption?"