Firefox, Safari, and Opera are horrible brands that non-technical people hate.
Um, really? Most of my friends who use Firefox quite like it. Those who use Macs use Safari, for the most part. Basically no one has heard of Opera. But I don't know of a single non-technical user who "hates" any of those brands.
For many people IE == internet
I think you give far too little credit to most Internet users. Even among older users, the vast majority are aware of the difference between a client application and a website.
"While Opera is arguably ahead of the curve in many areas I've always felt they lack the polish everyone else brings. Be it Safari's glossy SpeedDial or Chromes fancy tear-away tabs Opera has a great idea and then consistently falls short of the mark."
Do most users actually comparison shop browsers? Do they try out Opera, Chrome, and Safari and then decide they'd prefer one over the other because of some eye candy the others lack?
I'm sure some power users do, but I would bet that the average user just uses whatever's already installed at work, or whatever browser sounds like what they've heard other people talk about.
They don't have the time or interest to comparison shop (and probably wouldn't even know what to look for, or even that other browsers exist).
Any non-technical user won't be reading this article and won't give a damn about IE vs. FF vs. Chrome, as long as their internets work.
Not giving a damn isn't the same as not being affected by. IE slows down innovation and productivity on the web. Everyone's internets are worse for it, and it's a ball-and-chain everyone's paying to drag behind us.. whether or not everyone's aware of it.
I think you give far too little credit to most Internet users. Even among older users, the vast majority are aware of the difference between a client application and a website.
That was equality, not identity! It's a terminology thing. Yes, they know the difference between the internet and their browser certainly, but I know people who more or less refer to IE as "the internet." It's part of the name, after all. I think they generally call the net itself either "the web" or "online." Obviously I'm pulling from a small data set, but nonetheless, IE does give the impression on the outside that it's the authoritative browser, much as Google's homepage does for search.
My thought exactly. Who, of all the users on IE, has even heard of a different browser? And then of these users, they decide that IE is still better? Is this like some .001% that I can't find anywhere?
Except that many IE8 users don't even know what a browser is. That isn't an euphemism, they literally don't know the word "browser". There message as displayed conveys the message better than "We don't support your browser" to those people, and there are more of those people than there are Opera users.
I work at a bank (network and maintainace department) I see the case on MOST PC's where a user prefers either Firefox or Google Chrome over IE, it's NOT because the user is aware of the performance issues but they generally assume/gossip that other browsers JUST work better...
It's because not everyone ... actually the vast majority of users ... is aware of other browsers and even if they would be, they may have then only known about Firefox even though there are many many more browsers.
Think of it this way, it's akin to a car manufacturer selling cars with labels that state that anything other than XYZ branded gasoline will cause damage and void the warranty. Sure, maybe it won't cause damage and sure it may not stand up in court that it voids the warranty, but most people aren't in the position to know that, nor should they need to be in the position to know.
We ... the community of technology savy ... are very frequently remiss to ignore that not everyone can be, nor should have to be well informed about technology. Think of if Martha Stewart claimed that her recipe will only turn out if you use Greenest Pastures Milk when you are trying to hobble together a cake to impress your family. Are you informed enough about the intricacies of milk that you would know that you can use other milk brands?
Sure, you may scoff and say that you know enough about milk to know that it's not true, but do you know that some brands don't have additives or certain types of fat that may collapse your batter?
IME non-techy people don't even know the name of their browser (or that it's called a browser, "oh you mean The Internet") nevermind the version number.
A lot of users don't understand the concept of a browser. 'Internet Explorer' is that thing they use to get to their internet. "What the hell is this Morzilla, I want my Internet!"
> how many computer-illiterate people even know what version of ie they're using?
This is important. Remember, most people don't even know what a browser is. Internet Explorer is very cleverly named: people don't think they're opening a browser, they think they're opening the internet.
Um, really? Most of my friends who use Firefox quite like it. Those who use Macs use Safari, for the most part. Basically no one has heard of Opera. But I don't know of a single non-technical user who "hates" any of those brands.
For many people IE == internet
I think you give far too little credit to most Internet users. Even among older users, the vast majority are aware of the difference between a client application and a website.
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