[hosay123]

Speaking as someone of "lower means" and mostly with a lifelong dedication to computers, I don't particularly care what software I use, and if you forced me to try and rationalize my choices, most likely I would, like the majority of people on the planet, spout mostly meaningless bullshit.

The "tech savvy" only differ in one sense: they are incredibly more delusional about their choices than the rest of the planet. I certainly haven't taken the time to study Chrome's design in depth (or for that matter Firefox's), and probably never will. My reasoning for using Firefox is due to a vague-warm-fuzzy ideological alignment I seem to have with Mozilla and their approach to software. Nothing quantitative, and certainly nothing adequately logical that I could use it to command authority over anyone else on the planet. In fact exactly the kind of thought processes that "joe user" experiences ("I like the icon.. it bounces"). 23 years spent in front of a machine, and that's still pretty much me.

[icebraining]

No, the difference is that you actually know what a browser is. "Google" is still a common reply to "what browser do you use?".

[Oxxide]

how is that not a valid response? sure, it's not semantically accurate.

but, if someone says that, you know exactly what they mean. seems like a valid response to me any way you slice it.

p.s. this kind of attitude is part of the problem.

[wutbrodo]

I think (correct me if I'm wrong) that you misunderstood the post you were replying to. It seems that what your parent post was saying is that people respond that they use "Google" as in "Google search" (whether on Firefox or IE or Chrome or Opera or..), not as in "Google Chrome". THAT mistake is far from just a semantic issue, but demonstrates a lack of understanding of what a browser is, or even its existence as something discrete from the websites they use.

To make the example clearer, I've personally had the experience of asking someone what browser they use and getting "Yahoo" (as in the Yahoo.com homepage) as an answer.

[mercurial]

> seems like a valid response to me any way you slice it.

How so? It does not tell you if it's Firefox, Chrome, IE, Opera or Safari. My mom refers to the Internet as "google".

[yRetsyM]

> My mom refers to the Internet as "Google".

that's how she browses the internet then? in her case the application wouldn't matter to greatly if her point of reference is the Google search box

[mercurial]

If it's a matter of security, speed, or an issue with how a particular website is rendered, knowing that somebody uses "google" as a web browser is of little help when attempting a diagnosis, regardless of their point of reference.