But seriously, it does bug me that Chrome, Firefox, etc. don't label themselves "Chrome Web Browser" and "Firefox Web Browser". A surprisingly high number of people don't even understand how they are browsing the web. The generally find some random way to get online, like clicking a shortcut to some random web page, and keep using this. They have no idea how to answer the question "which browser are you using". A large number of people, perhaps a majority of those 60+, have this issue.
Add to this the concept of a "search engine" and they become hopelessly confused.
No, it goes to prove that most people think "browser" means search engine and don't grasp the significance of the actual browser at all. Before Google, they thought Yahoo or MSN was their "browser"* . They clearly recognize that they have a choice and most of them choose Google, at least when asked by a Google employee.
* At least, that's the simplest assumption we can make, unless someone has some actual data from back then.
What I meant was that in a tech support context if you ask people what browser they're using they will often say something like "I went to Product Name" or "I'm on Product Name". Then ask them what actual address they visited or again ask them what browser they are using and they will say something like "I went to the Internet".
I am not calling anybody dumb. I'm saying they don't care and don't know there is any reason to care.
"""99% of FF users would just switch to Google as soon as they install it. I assume you can back that up somehow? Most evidence I've seen indicates that the majority of people don't change defaults.""""
Then the evidence you've seen is wrong. If people "don't change defaults" how come they switched to FF in the first place, which is not the default browser on Windows, but is (or rather, was until it lost to Chrome) an extremely popular windows browser?
Maybe naive users don't change defaults, but those users are sticking with (duh) the default IE. Users that moved to FF are more likely to change defaults.
Also, they won't even have to change the default: they just navigate to google.com and search from there, instead of using the search in the toolbar with this unfamiliar "Bing" thing.
Note the use of the word: "competent". None has results that good that make people actually want to switch to it. (For example, DDG's main selling point is privacy).
The only example I agree with, Baidu was made from a similar algorithm to Google's and with a remarkably similar history (RankDex vs PageRank etc). And even that is mainly popular in China for national/cultural/political reasons, methinks.
You might be surprised at how many people don't know the difference between a search engine and a browser. If you ask random people what browser they use, especially people over the age of say 45, you're likely to get several people saying "Google". Not Chrome, just... Google. And no, at least some of them are not using that to mean Chrome.
I would hope a TV quiz show would do their research to know the basics of what they're talking about, but... I guess not.
That's true. I said 'browser' to a client on the phone the other day and they asked me what that was. I then had to correct myself and say "Internet Explorer". ;)
I understand your sentiment. If that's the case, our concern should not be "what browsers are on the list"? It should be, like with Y!: "What does FB mean by 'support'?"
How so? It does not tell you if it's Firefox, Chrome, IE, Opera or Safari. My mom refers to the Internet as "google".
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