| Kasz216 said: Come to think of it... I was using netscape too... and I didn't know shit about computers back then. I actually didn't stop using it until Aol stopped updating it. I knew othershit was out there... including IE. It was right on my desktop... but netscape worked.
Truth is. People are just going to pick whichever one sounds cool, or possibly even just ask their friends what they use aka IE. So they'll use IE. Cause a webbrowser is a freaking web broweser. They're all 90-95% the same to most people. |
You're just being unreasonable now. I am not sure of your age, but I'm pretty sure that you were a teen that knew shit about computers back then. That's not the same as a 40-something used to a paper-based office work not knowing shit about computers. Younger people have been exposed to much more electronic devices and interfaces and are obviously more prompt in learning their way around.
I'l bring in anedoctes as well. Only not just one case or a few as in you and your parents. More like the few hundreds to thousand clients I've worked with since '97. They have trouble understanding why things open on their desktop with a double click, but links open with a single click. They often have no idea what a browser is, unless they've been exposed to alternatives from savy nephews or sons. Not stupid people, mind you, just illiterate and sometimes with a blind spot when it comes to learning that kind of flexibility and automatisms. And very prone to bring home the very same default choices made for them at work.
Just like there were in history so many bright persons who could not read nor write, we are still at the point where the importance of the web and computers in general for the common people have way overadvanced the literacy on their use. Educating people and aiding them in an important choice of their main tool with an option screen is bad again, why?
Maybe for 90% of them IE will be just as good as Firefox or Opera or Safari or Chrome, but as a web developer I'm telling you that 100% of them will benefit because of the content evolution from the improved diversity and competition in the browser ecosystem.
Edit and PS: For all who named it, I've got IE8 in my test cases, and it's quite improved while still behind in terms of standard compliancy. The fact that tech-savy people can declare themselves anywhere nearly satisifed with an IE browser nowadays - opposed to the times of the frozen-in-awful-state times of IE6 - is one more proof that competition in the browser field brought a better net experience all around. I want more of that, and I don't think we should afford another 5-10 years of rigged browser market.
