Only 8% of users know what a browser is. Do we have to rethink the browser game? | Hacker News Reader

Only 8% of users know what a browser is. Do we have to rethink the browser game?

customer-experience-labs.com

32 pointsbbhacker16 comments

This is an article about marketing browsers, i.e. what can browsers offer so that people start caring which browser they are using.

I just don’t really see the big problem there. We have got a lot of healthy competition in the browser market. The dark ages of IE6 are (nearly) over and the future of browsers is looking pretty good.

I don’t think you will be able to change much about the way people think about the web and browsers. Browsers are just one of those transparent things that remain in the background. And I’m pretty sure that throwing features at the problem is not the right way to go. Turning browsers into glorified <Insert-Your-Favorite-Web-Thing-Here> clients just seems to be a pretty stupid move.

At and old company, we were dealing with the acquisition of a new product, and with it a new, more vocal user base that often expressed itself on USENET. The CTO went on our website, followed some links to a 3rd party website, hit a nntp:// link that opened Outlook Express on a newsgroup, then was all up in arms the next day: "What are all these negative comments doing on our website!?"

Yes, it was something like 2001, and we had a software company CTO that didn't know the difference between http and nntp and Internet Explorer and Outlook Express.

To quote Zed Shaw: Steak and Strippers, Baby!

It seems your CTO also didn't know the difference between your website and other websites. He must have had one hell of a personality.

He once saved the CEO/founder 2 million dollars. Afterward, he was considered a saint, and we've had to deal with his technical incompetence ever since.

Browsers are not the issue here. When Woz designed the Apple II, he imagined that everyone who owned one would write programs for it. Instead, they used it for VisiCalc or Number Munchers. Programmers look at a computer and see possibilities, competing technologies, and a vast environment to explore. Everyone else looks at a computer and sees a tool, something to let them catch up with Grandma without having to call or pay a visit.

The real question to ask is what makes programmers (and their ilk) different from everyone else. I'm convinced the answer is education, but it seems like no one is interested in discussing the sad state of such in the US.

Bottom line: Most people don't care what computer, let alone what browser, they use. All they care is what it can do for them, and faster load times don't seem to make that big a difference.

I don't think education has much to do with it. It's more of an intellectual curiosity and a capacity for independent thought two things which most people lack. How else do you explain children who take to computers at a young age.

Only 2% of users know what a CVT Transmission is, do we need to rethink the 'powertrain' game?

Only 2% of users know what polyethylene is, do we need to rethink the 'bagging' game?

The CV transmission and polyethylene are internal components.

I'm overthinking here, but the browser is essentially a JIT typesetter and job press inside a box of menus and buttons to control it.

For the "browser as publisher" question, what percentage of people know what an offset press versus letterpress is, or if talking about rendering, a Linotype versus Scitex? Even though you can touch the difference on a page, most people don't care. (Btw, does anyone have a working daisywheel printer I could buy?)

For the box of menus and buttons, thinking "browser as UI", what percentage of users know who makes their car radio?

The car radio is somewhat similar since some models have knobs, some have buttons, they generally tune in stations mostly as well as each other (except for one or two that pull in almost nothing). The car radio comes with the car, and can be replaced, but few people actually bother.

And if the radio's too specific, you could stop quite a few people on the street and ask them what kind of car (operating system) they have, and some will tell you, "A red one."

Okay - so given this data along with the recent announcement that Windows 7 will ship without a browser built-in in Europe, does that mean that up to 92% of Europe will go offline when they upgrade?

So, you're saying that all of Internet's intelligible discussion is generated by less then that, right?

Makes me wonder whether Internet in it's current state will hold up were we to dislodge with the general ignorance.

maybe you mean "intelligible web tech discussion". there are plenty of intelligent discussions occurring on the internet by intelligent people who don't know what a browser is.

In other words.. we still need to make sites IE6 compatible the coming 10 years.

Firefox changed the way people perceive browsers. I don't know how much I trust the recorded sampling.

Might be the sampling is skewed, but still it means that people are still susceptible to the false claims that Internet Explorer makes.

I think all browsers (including IE) must provide native support for cross-platform.

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