I often tend to judge people based on the type of browser they use. Believe it or not, the choice of your favorite browser reveals a lot about your personality.
IE 5.0:
You only use your computer for IM, email and Myspace. You stubbornly refuse to upgrade that ancient Win 98 box that you are using because you don’t need some fancy computer and in your opinion the one you have works just fine. You also probably don’t use antivirus or antispyware either. You just let your son/nephew/friend clean it out every month or so.
IE 6.0:
You probably don’t know what a “browser” is and you think Internet is IE. You have no clue about technology, and you are generally afraid of computers. You also use your machine only for IM, chat, email and myspace. Your friends keep telling you about that “Fried Fox” thingy but you don’t really understand this stuff and never really had time to look into it.
IE 7.0:
You consider yourself to be on the cutting edge of technology. You think that Microsoft is the greatest company on the earth, and that this evil “Lenoux” operating system is made by terrorists. You have a poster of Steve Ballmer on your wall, and you want to be like Bill Gates when you grow up. When you think about Vista you get goosebumps and shiver with excitement.
Firefox 1.x:
You are most likely a little bit geeky and proud of it. You are a strong supporter of the Open Source movement, and you think that RMS is “the man”. You really don’t care if FF is faster, or safer than IE – you would use it even if it performed 10 times worse. You are just happy that you have a free, open source browser with a huge community that is supporting it. At any given time you have installed at least 7 extensions that you couldn’t live without.
Firefox 2.0 Beta:
You are a developer by day and open source developer by night. Either that, or a huge Firefox fan. You are all over Bugzilla reporting all the issues you encounter with the browser. You have probably summited at least one patch to an open source project at some point in your life. You love to tinker with your applications, and you don’t mind running beta software on your machine. After all, it is fun to discover new bugs, and to work little kinks out of the new cutting edge programs.
Mozilla:
You have been with Mozilla since the begging. You think that Firefox is really over-hyped and you prefer the old school Netscape like environment much better. You don’t think the Moz Suite is bloated – you actually like having a mail client, irc client, and a web editor embedded in the browser. You don’t understand why people would pick a browser with less features. In all other aspects you are much like a Firefox user – you love Open Source, you are fond of your extensions and etc… Actually, no – you would rather say that Firefox users are much like you in their tastes. After all, you were using an awesome gecko powered browser while they were still struggling with their IE or whatever.
Opera:
You really don’t care for they Firefox hype. What you want is the best browser there is – and for you that’s Opera. You actually used to pay them when the browser was ad supported. If a Firefox fanboi starts talking smack about your browser you quickly shoot him down by proposing the ACID2 test. You know what you want (a fast, standards compliant browser) and you know where to get it. Browser wars do not interest you at all, although you kinda hope that Firefox wins so that fewer web developers make IE only pages.
Netscape 8.x:
You are a senior citizen, who just recently got a new computer. You don’t really understand anything about the internets, but you distinctly remember that you must have Netscape to run them. You can’t understand all that talk about Internet Explorator and Firesomething, and you have no clue what Oprah has to do with the internets. All you know is that you need to click on that big N to get to the “onlines”. You think that Senator Steven’s speech about net neutrality made a lot of sense. You also sent out an internet one day, and the other person haven’t received it for days.
Netscape 7 and below:
See IE 5.0.
AOL Explorer:
Ever since you installed new AIM client this thing became your default browser. You really hate it, but you just can’t figure out how to change it back. You don’t even know how to explain what you want to your computer savvy friends. Whenever you try to get help and you say something like “can you change the new internet, back to the old internet?” they just stare at you and pretend they don’t understand. They probably don’t know as much about computers as they say they do, or something.
AOL Suite:
You most likely either still use AOL as your dialup ISP. Either that, or you somehow figured that you still need AOL even after getting broadband connection. Someone told you you can actually use the internets without starting AOL but you haven’t figured out how is that possible. It seems really difficult though, and you suspect it might be illegal.
Safari:
Congratulations! You are a Mac user with all perks and benefits that title offers you. You love OSX, and you would never use Windows. It just seems ugly and kludge stricken to you. You like the simplicity, and clarity that Mac offers you, and Safari is a browser that just works for you. You never really bothered to look for another one, because you are fully satisfied with what you have and you wouldn’t change it for the world.
Konqueror:
You are a linux user, and a geek at heart. You think that KDE is the best desktop environment out there, and you despise Gnome. You love the fact that your browser is also file manager, a ftp/scp client, smb share client, a PDF viewer and many other things. You like to show off KDE’s network transparency to your friends by scp’ing to your web server, editing HTML file, saving it, and then refreshing the modified page without ever leaving the browser. Most of the applications you use on a daily basis have names starting with a k (Kmail, Kontact, Kdevelop, Koffice etc..)
Lynx:
You are a liar. You really want me to believe that you use a text browser for everything? Especially one that does not support javascript, frames, css and has trouble displaying tables? Seriously, I can totally believe that you use vi all the time, and that your primary email client is Mutt or Pine. But there is no way that I’m prepared to buy that you use lynx for everything. And if you would, then you’d be the most hardcore geek I have ever seen in my life. Hats off to you!
—
If you disagree with any of the above, please let me know in the comments. If you are offended, then stop using that shit you use and get a real browser. :mrgreen: Also feel free to add short descriptions for the browsers that I missed.
Disclaimer: I have no clue who made that awesome firefox image. Someone had it as an avatar on a message board. I’m perfectly willing to give the author credit if I can find him.
Update Sun, August 20 2006, 04:00 AM
Thank you for all the comments. Just to set things straight – I am not saying Lynx is a bad browser. I use it quite often in fact for various things. I’m just saying that I doubt a lot of people would use it as their main browser of choice. But if you are, hats off to you! You are much more hardcore than I am.
Update Sun, August 20 2006, 10:09 PM
Now, here are some missing browsers by popular demand:
Flock:
They might as well call you Mr. Web 2.0. You are all over flickr, del.icio.us, youtube and dozens of other websites, and your browser reflects it. You think that Firefox is OK, but it does not include all the blogging, photo sharing, tagging and bookmark sharing tools right there at your fingertips. You wish you could get a chip implanted in your brain so that you would stay connected to the web and be able to moblog 24/7. When the small minded people tell you that Flock is just a fork of Firefox you dismiss them saying they are not seeing the big picture.
Epiphany:
You are a Gnome user and proud of it. You consider KDE a torture device from hell. You are fond of explaining people that KDE must be configured for hours before it can be usable. The people who claim that KDE is totally usable right out of the box are definitely dirty liers. You prefer things simple and intuitive – that’s why you picked Gnome, and that’s why you use Epiphany. You tried using Mozzila and Firefox but you found them bloated, counterintuitive and ugly. Your desktop is neat an organized, just like your desk is.
Maxthon and Avant:
You are a little bit confused. You like IE and you wouldn’t change it for another browser. You don’t want to worry about sites that won’t render properly, or ActiveX controls that won’t work on an alternative browser. But deep down inside you are envious of your friends who get to have tabbed browsing, and other cool features. You do recognize that IE is a little behind the times though, and you want something more modern, without giving up your ability to render certain websites. Maxhton/Avant lets you have the best of both worlds – the warm and comfy feel of IE rendering engine, and all the cool features that are standard in other browsers. You will likely switch to IE7 when it is out of beta.
Sea Monkey:
You simply like application suites. You can’t help it, but the thought of using separate applications for web browsing an email just seems obscene to you. You used to use Mozilla but when Sea Monkey was released, you quickly jumped ship and you have never looked back. You think Sea Monkey is the coolest name for a browser ever!
w3m:
You have been a sysadmin for most of your life. You rarely see the sunlight because you spend most of your day in the bowels of the NOC surrounded by big servers. You can’t sleep without the background noise of a humming computer fan. You take a warm jacket to work even in the summertime because the AC in the server room is cranked up so high you could get a cold just thinking about it. Young geeks look up to you, and try to imitate you – but you could never figure out why.
K-Meleon:
You are way to impatient to wait for your browser to load. Even IE starts up to slow for you. That’s why your browser has a preloader, and it is cranked up so high that it only takes nanoseconds for the window to pop up on the screen. You live life in the fast lane, and you do not have time to wait for the slow moving applications. You can remember spending hours doing windows registry tweaks to bring up those response rates, loading times, and decrease timeouts on everything.
Dillo:
You are a minimalist at heart. You like your applications small and fast. You can be obsessive about memory footprints of the programs you run on a daily basis. You most likely run IceWM or Windowmaker on your machine and you sneer at the bloated desktop environments such as KDE or Gnome. You are known as the the local Linux/BSD guru.
—
Sigh… I tried to write something about Camino, Shiira and Omniweb but I have nothing. I never used them. Please feel free to do your own description of those in the comment and I will include it in the post.
Translations:
This post was translated to Chinese – here. I can’t read Chinese so I can’t tell you much more about it, but I think it’s awesome that someone took time to do this. :mrgreen:
Portugese translation can be found here. Thanks!
Update Mon, Aug 21 2006, 3:20 PM
For those of you who are interested, here are my istes the browser usage statistics for the last few days.
[tags]browser, browser wars, firefox, internet explorer, ie, opera, safari, lynx, netscape, aol, aol explorer[/tags]
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Hahah! Quality. I love it.
I’m an Opera man, me (he says, wearing his opera hoodie, and posting to his opera community blog).
And then, when I’m not on Opera, I like Camino. Didn’t see that on your list. ;)
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Hi,
can I translate this article to my blog?
I’ll translate it to portuguese.
Thanks in advance,
Diogo.
Diogo Azevedo: Yes, go ahead! Just link back to me somewhere in the post. :) Thanks!
I’m thrilled that people are translating this to other languages!
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The idea that “browsers are all the same” is retarded, IE suports bugger all standards, I fit into the opera persona quite well, but i never paid them back in the day. Opera does a shitload of things better than firefox (yes including the adic2 test :D)which is just using google to advertise. I like the idea that Opera is the leading browser all todays browsers have features which opera came up with first. A lot of people use firefox because they don’t know of opera. Most of the personas are accurate, maybe not the safari one.
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I use Internet Explorer 7, Flock, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and also Avant browser. So what’s my personality?
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Really Nice One!
I m a web developer and being a web developer and satisfy needs of customers for all different browsers is really too much !
These makers of browsers don’t understand our problem and try to make browsers which dont support things which they used to support.
The biggest problem is Java Script/AJAX.
But now we are able to fight against all versions of any damn new browser…
I hope one day we get a browser which is used by all users of internet !
IS IT POSSIBLE
Well, I so do know about ‘Fried Fox’ as it says :P
Its useful to a limit…
Thanks
folks like me, who browse only in office hours (ha ha) have to browse using approved browsers only. unfortunately only IE is allowed in office laptops and desktops!!!
what category do we belong to?
Anurag: no, it is not possible, nor is it desirable. Competition on the browser market is good – it dirves innovation!
Please note that w3c standards describe in detail how a browsers should render given HTML or CSS element. If all the browsers implemented the specs in a satisfactory manner, we would not have these problems.
What you really want is standards compliance across all browsers – not single browser monopoly.
Cyberdog is my web browser of choice and I’m not afraid to admit it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberdog
Very entertaining. I use Opera, Firefox & IE. Why no mention of widgets?
To all of the people who got their feelers hurt by this column…….
What your response says about you:
You drive an American car with a WO4 sticker. You get vehemently upset when some lefty lib tries to state his negative opinion about the current administration, the Patriot Act or the “War on Terror”. You believe in aggregation of Church and State. You don’t get laid enough, think Anne Coulter is a goddess and that man that the vice prez shot apologized because dammit……he should have. You scan Digg and websites so that you can argue with people who don’t share your opinion. You believe that since Bill Gates invented the computer and the internet, it’s only fair to use his web browser.
Take some of that pocket change you were planning to send to the Right Reverand Pat Roberts and buy a sense of humor, better yet, a personality.
you know what I’ve never understood? that aol for broadband thing, aren’t you just paying 15 bucks a month to use the aol browser? you should write something about those people…
Hehe, I never saw bigger stupidity. I work with computers 18 years, with internet 11 years. I own web hosting company which manage hundreds of servers and thousands of virtual accounts. THOUGH, I still use IE6 — I never had any virus, never had similar things in my computer.
What is this about? It’s about big ego of the writter. And he don’t understand one thing – every person is using what he want, that’s all.
If you want to judge by browser using, you are probably the most stupid person I ever seen.
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I’ve translated it to Brazilian-Portuguese, linked and trackbacked!
http://www.diogoazevedo.com/%5B..]direi-quem-es/
Thanks again Luke!
Milosh: I’m sure that with your impressive background of work in the industry you must have encountered this thing called “geek humor”? Do you also get upset when comedians make jokes about your favorite politicians on TV?
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omg , I use opera and I totally agree with your description of an opera user. I just want the safest, fastest browser out there. Opera it is.
I also run firefox for accessing meebo and gmail. I find that opera messes up those websites.
I use Opera also because it has has a lot of features, much more than most other browsers. Yes, I use most of them. Beside this, the description is very accuratte. Congratulations! Like Opera lover, I ignore all sites that don’t work in Opera.
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wow. Can so few people actually read the intent of this piece? Sheer idiocy, going on and on about how this site stereotypes people or doesn’t have them exactly right. Laugh, it’s good for you. Unfortunently, the people who need to read this comment the most will simply skip it and post their own comment about how stupid or how lame or stereotypical this blog post is. Oh well.
And by the way, DEATH TO THE LENOUX TERRORISTS!!!
I like Maxthon. It’s the best browser.
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I love this site! one of the most funniest article I read! I love it and I want to share this site to others..
I like GreenBrowser !
Great Blog! I’m a macophile but I happen to be using a Dell at this monent my browser of choice is firefox on both computers. It’s easy, clean and SAFE (especially with the Mac)
Good on ya!
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Here is another translation in chinese:
http://my.opera.com/z8519312/blog/show.dml/423938
easy clean and safe huh sounds like a brothel…
joking joking
What’s wrong with Camino? You think it’s not good enough? Or did you just forget about it?
I’m a computer tech and I still use IE and Opera. I tried Firefox, but found the hype far beyond the product. Maybe if the designers of the browser would actually let you customize as much as IE does (it’s a pet peeve of mine if I can’t remove whatever toolbars and buttons I want) I’d use it again, but I think Firefox users mostly like bashing others for the same reason that liberals “think” the way they do: to feel superior to others. After a couple of weeks of Firefox, I wasn’t impressed. Maybe next time, guys.
Sigh: not sure what you mean about FF customizability. I can move all the buttons around, reposition the toolbar, addressbar, and search bar. I can even move the spinner. Perhaps you should check out the newest versions.
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Even if some of these generalizations about browser users might be true, the tone of this writing is very harsh and rude. I find the discussion to be very condescending. Why do we have to be so interested in putting down people that don’t know as much about technology as we do? Perhaps they have more important issues going on in their lives like taking care of children, doing well at their job, being a good person…. Maybe they don’t walk around identifying themselves by their browser, but by other important criteria – am I a good parent, am I a good friend, do I take care of myself and my family….
Kristen: it’s all in good fun. Here is how it goes:
– clueless people make fun of techies by making nerd jokes.
– techies make fun of clueless people by making luser jokes.
No matter what path in life do you choose, someone will be out there making fun of you.
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Kristen: it all is in good fun
Anyone with any sense knows that you cannot tell a person’s personality by the browser they use, computer they use, car they drive, etc.. This is therefor considered a joke or a lampoon. Pres. Clinton probably kept his johnson in his pants more often than not and Pes. Bush is probably not as dumb as he comes off in his speeches but people will exaggerate and overstate the things that they do. This is part of lampooning. Relax, no one is directly making fun of you or anyone else. It is good hearted ribbing. Relaxing will also help you as a mother, friend, partner and person. I would venture to say that a large portion of the people you meet on this and other Blogs are parents, friends and spouses, just like you. Some of us might know a little more about computing about you simply because it interests us more than you. One thing you might want to do is try something new. Download the firefox or opera browser. You might like them. People here and on other weblogs would help you without a second thougt. You won’t break your computer. You might have fun! Good luck and thank you for being a good parent, we need need as many as we can get.
Hi Luke,
Great write-up! Loved your analysis and know many people that you’ve ‘pegged’ perfectly. Self included.
Currently use the ‘fox’ most of the time and IE6 for sites that hiccup when they see the ‘fox’ – like my idiot bank site.
Being a bit of a ‘browser junky’, I’ve used Opera, Netscape, Maxthon, IE2, Firebird, etc….. Will definitely have to check out some of the other browsers mentioned in the comments……. What the heck, my computer hasn’t crashed in a day or two and things are getting boring……..
I made a translation of this article to czech… hope it’s allowed :-) so if someone interested… here it is :-)
Yes, of course it is allowed! Just post a link back to me if you can! :mrgreen: Thanks!
There’s a link to this original article already (on the third line of the translation), if you mean this :-)
Hey, what about Galeon? You can’t miss Galeon! It’s what FireFox could have been…
非常好啊！ 终于看到Maxthon的影子！支持Maxthon！
Thanks for a funny (browser) web page!.There must be a reason why Microsoft invited the Firefox team to work whit the new Windows Vista!. :)
支持Maxthon啊！
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I prefer to use maxthon , although the others are good, but it seems that It’s the most convenient one …
呵呵…Maxthon是国货吗?
如果是,那么是中国人就顶个!~
Have you run Tablane browser, the only parallel browser in the world, very fast.
GhostSurfer: I was suspecting that this is either going to be an assassination attempt, or that they are going to test the bran new Microsoft BrainWash™ technology on them. :mrgreen:
Yeah… iCab rocks.
msie isn`t very good.but it will change ………….
i`m using maxthon
hehe……
I’m a SeaMonkey user, but the two quotes from Mozilla are so me: “You have been with Mozilla since the begging” and “You don’t understand why people would pick a browser with less features.” Also SeaMonkey’s “You used to use Mozilla but when Sea Monkey was released, you quickly jumped ship and you have never looked back”; I’ve been using it since before the name become official (I was hoping for SeaMonkey to be the official name, BTW).
And I guess I’ll join in and say that your grammar and spelling need even more help than mine: “since the beginning,” “browser with fewer features,” “you are way too impatient.”
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I was a microsoft fan for many years but have now started to explore the others browsers on the web. I have recently downloaded and installed Firefox 2 beta 2 which I think is excellent.
I now reside IE 7 to testing purposes only
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Hey,
this is an very interesting article and it was fun to read it. Thank you!
I translated it to German:
http://www.chmiela.com/article.php?id=6
Hello, I’m a Chinese Opera fan who’ve read your article translated in Chinese which forced me to visit your blog. I’m happy that it seems you like Opera rather than Firefox, and I can’t agree more with you!
Yes, Opera is so good that we needn’t care about other browsers. Firefox is popular, but I think it’s slow, and what’s worse, it almost cannot work without plugins… so funny, isn’t it?
Of course I’m not going to argue with Firefox fans, for Firefox fans are the same loyal as we Opera fans are. What I wanna say is, that we Opera fans are proud of using Opera Browser.
BTW, you mentioned Maxthon and Avant, why not have a try with TheWorld? TheWorld is developed directly with Win32 SDK, rather than using MFC or something, so it faster, more powerful and more effective. While Maxthon, also developed by Chinese programmer as TheWorld, is famous, but it is slower that TheWorld and it uses more memory. I hope you can try TheWorld and add the description of it to your post. Thanx very much.
Oh, you can visit http://www.ioage.com to get TheWorld.
Download v1.32, for v2.0 is just alpha version which has little functions.
PS:
I tested the English version of TheWorld’s website and found that there wasn’t any link point to TheWorld v1.32, so I post it there.
http://www.ioage.com/cn/theworld_download.htm
This page is Chinese, but don’t worry about it, just find the download link and have a try.
PS2:
I just suggest you compare Maxthon and TheWorld, because they both use IE kernel.
Again, Opera is best, I love it :)
各位中国的兄弟，支持我啊，喜欢Firefox的不要找我打 架，我很虚弱的，再说Opera确实很快嘛，在Linux下也有 很多人用Opera而不用Firefox啦……
哇哈哈，哇哈哈
I used to experiment with a lot of different browsers until I found Opera back in its 4+ days. I loved it for its speed, since I was on dialup back then. I hated the advertising though, so I tried out Firebird 0.7 after I had cable access. I thought it had great potential, and ended up switching over to it. I’ve been with the fried browser ever since, although I have still tried out other browsers as well. The thing I like most about FF is that I can customize it exactly the way I want.
I have everything except my links in just 1 toolbar at the top. A 3-word menu, 5 buttons, a no-script advisory button, the address box, and the search box. The whole menu, and the right click menu are extensively customized, and so is the search box, including an extension that allows me to just slide it over when I’m not using it, to make more room for the address box. I have 20 extensions installed of which 14 are extremely useful, and I like to experiment with new ones that I may not keep, so those are the other 6.
The description of the FF user is partially right about me, but the reason I keep experimenting with other browsers is because that’s how I found FF in the first place, and you never know……….And if it was 10x worse, or even 2-3x worse, I’d probably try out the latest version of Opera and consider going back to it, or maybe one of the other non-IE based ones mentioned here like K-Meleon.
BTW, I’m not a programmer or a true geek, I just like fiddling with software settings until I get an interface that I like if the program allows it.
Wow, so many people can’t take a joke. Yea the descriptions aren’t 100% accurate for all users but who cares! They are spot-on for a good number of people as well. Hilarious. Personally I prefer Safari and was a bit disappointed you didn’t dig into Safari users more. Something about superiority complexes and being blissfully-unawares would of hit the spot I think.
v funny – enjoyed that – I’m a Firefox 1.x – very close – also loyal becuase of tabbed browsing (though I know I can get it in some versions of IE!)
Really amazing collection and facts. Browserhelp is a web-based anonymous proxy service which allows to surf the Web in a secured manner.
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Webkit:
The description would read along the lines of a style-conscious geek…maybe a cross between the Safari and Firefox 2.0 Beta descriptions.
Opera FTW.
Scarily accurate.
lynx does support frames…just not in concurrent fashion. on first entering a frames-based site, you can choose which frame to dive into. it’s easy enough to flip between them, though.
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Funny how sterotypes can be so accurate sometimes.
Interesting read.
Need to make some sort of script that combines descriptions for people that use multiple browsers.. A browser mutant API anyone?
Camino, Webkit, Safari, Firefox.
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You may be right that a choice of browser reveals something about a person’s personality, although I’m not sure I would say it reveals “a lot” and I would definitely say that it doesn’t reveal the things you think it does. I’m not offended in the least at your mischaracterization, but you are just plain wrong. I use IE because it was on my computer when I bought it and I couldn’t be bothered to download anything else. I spend my time doing real stuff on the computer, rather than worrying about which bell or whistle a given browser has or doesn’t have.
The use of the word “favorite” with “browser” is rather silly, IMO. A browser is a browser. People use what they’re used to using. Claiming that one browser is the be-all and end-all, while those who use anything else are stupid (or, at least, misguided) is pretty much akin to claiming to have the inside scoop on which religion is the “real” one. Diff’rent strokes.
JPDeni: I don’t agree. The word favorite is very appropriate to a browser. I have a favorite browser, favorite mail client, favorite operating system, favorite shell, favorite programming language and etc…
For me browser is a productivity tool. I want to use one that gives me the features that I care about. I check out new browsers and if I find one that fits my needs better than my current one, has good support and large community then I switch.
I also do real things on the computer, but I find that I can often do them more efficiently if I have the right tools.
Sure, you can build a house from sticks and stones with your bare hands using structural tension to hold it together. But having power tools tools and prefabricated materials at your fingertips really helps to accomplish the task faster.
Great stuff! But I think you missed one: CAB is the browser of choice for all of us, Atari ST geeks ;-)