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Comment by bepotts | Hacker News Reader

How could they not?

You upgrade your OS or buy a new computer, and you see a new application ( that you didn't install ) and you ( presumably ) can't uninstall it. Wouldn't any rational person assume it's a pre-installed application? Wouldn't it make sense to believe that the OS developer created it?

There's an old joke about IE when people purchase a new computer: It's the browser I use to install another browser. What are people going to think when they don't see IE anymore and they see a new browser?

Everyone will know the Edge is Microsoft's new browser, and everyone knows that Microsoft's previous browser was IE.

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> Everyone

In my experience, you're dramatically overestimating how many people really understand what a browser is, what IE is, or can disambiguate between Chrome and Google.

Here's a great video that Google did back in 2009 that illustrates this pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ

"Everyone" wasn't the literal everyone, "everyone" is the group of people that buy a Windows OS and install another browser. Those people know what a browser is.

Maybe I misunderstood, but I was replying to your overall message about:

> I wonder how much the Edge's performance will affect the average person's decision to use it or not.

About half of people using Windows continue using IE right now. So, "everyone" and "average" definitely refer to a lot of people who have absolutely no idea what any of us are talking about in this entire page of comments. It's so easy to underestimate how little truly "average" folks understand or care about these nuances in the real world outside of a few tech bubble areas.

I have an excellent example of this. Despite having both Chrome and Firefox installed on my home desktop computer, my wife continues to use IE 11. Even with her own profile for Chrome, and using an Android phone with Chrome, she still sticks with IE for some odd reason.

Maybe you're right, but I feel like if there's one thing that will tip them off, it's the graphical similarity of the icons, rather than all the OS connections you've described.

I think with the name change, people might actually think of trying it out.

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