Google Fast Flip: the new news-worthy revelation in news...

Google has finally unleashed it's latest Google Labs (experimental features) beta. Called Fast Flip, it aims to revolutionize the way people read news. Judging by what I've seen, it will.

The great hallmark of Google News has always been that it was one place where you could read news from just about every reputable source. This is still the case with Fast Flip, which not only increases it's catalogue offerings, but also allows you to filter by not just topic, but also publication.

But here is where the resemblance to Google News ends. Rather than present readers with plain text news on a page under headings. It gives you actual images of the actual stories from their original locations, complete with headlines, bylines, stories, and unfortunately ads. Then, you can simply Flip through all the stories under whatever category/source you're looking at. And in true Google fashion, there ain't no waiting for thumbnails to load here. It's blindingly quick. During our hands-on, I only managed to get to a story without it's thumbnail already loaded once. And I was being pretty demanding.

Then, choose your article with a simple click and it gives you a bigger preview of the story with some more options, including to see the whole article, or "Like" the story, the usual share options, etc. Then, one simple click and you have the whole story, at its original source. Right there.

It's freaking brilliant. It works like an absolute charm, and I have had no problems with the (still experimental) tool yet, so that's a good sign.

It also has a dedicated iPhone page, which is also fantastic. It operates as above, but a bit better because it has all the functionality of the multi-touch interface. First page you see you can choose your category, then flip through the stories with a simple slide. Then, you can either pinch or rotate your iPhone to get a closer look. Tap to get all the usual options in it's own dialog box as well as some more info on your selected article.

But of course, there is a far more sinister side to all this. The two-step process between preview and story means that it has opened a whole new world of options. Options that aren't so great for us, the consumers.

One of the reasons Google put the effort into creating this, and also into changing into a preview-view operation lies in the Internet's very nature. Online press is notorious. It is almost impossible to make money out of online press. More than that, it takes revenue from more traditional sources. Why buy a magazine or a newspaper if you can just jump on your iPhone and look at all for free, on the fly. So far, neither have publishers been able to find a way to successfully monetize the online press, because either your readers run away from costs to someone else who happens to be free, or you can't generate enough money to cover your costs, or that there just isn't an efficient way of visitors paying for their content without too much hassle.

However, it's been reported that much of the Fast Flip architecture has been designed with future options to monetize the story, if you want to move past the article preview. On top of this is the fact that another part of Google Labs ongoing work is the Google Checkout, a payment method similar to PayPal, which we assume forms part of the underlying structure behind Fast Flip.

The implications of this aren't exactly great. It means that soon, not even Internet news will be free. We could all be paying for our news, even from our (almost) entirely free friends at Google.

What is the world coming to when you have to pay to know what the world is coming to.

Google hits back...

Some time ago, I may have said some things on how everyone was beating up on Google and yet, it was all actually a complete waste of time. And now, i get to show you all why!

So, in the last little while, there was Wolfram|Alpha, there was/is Microsoft/Yahoo, there was some piece of forgettable drivel with a crap name like Bing, or Bong, or CRAP or whatever it is. But now, Google has returned to its original famed position at the top of the pile.

Google has done a couple of things. Like Google Squared. Like Chrome. Like Chrome OS. Like Android improvements. Like everything. And so everyone loves them again.

But now lets get into my attitude part of things. All these tools like Wolfram Gamma, or whatever, are a complete waste of everyones time. I'm happy to report that in the interval between its release and now, I've used it once and it failed me. There are also a couple of other bits and pieces that have come along and tried to claim the throne, but lets look at what has actually happened in the meantime. Firstly, and well, lastly too, nothing.

Has any regular Google user actually decided: "yes. I think Bing is better." and actually started using it. And before you all jump on my arse in the comments about god-knows-who, I don't care if your best mate's dog's previous owner's second cousin's ex-girlfriends niece twice-removed's grandmother's parrot's friend's owner's fiance's grandfather's brother's uncle's best friend has started using Bing. Nobody cared. Not even the grandmothers parrot.

Since then Google has made many announcements. They launched Google Squared, a new search tool which enables users to compile a lot of information on a number of things in one easy format, all using Google's amazingly freakish technology. They have also announced that Google Chrome will become Google's second OS, alongside the more lightweight Android. Interestingly, both OS's have claimed they're aimed at the netbook market, which already has two OS's vying for control. Bizarre. They have also announced and showcased one of my most anticipated Google features in ages: Google Wave. A form of realtime collaboration, it appears to solve the perpetual problem of there being so many conflicting and co-existing standards and networks by bringing all the mediums (text, images, video, web) together onto one place (the Wave) and allowing anybody to use it (but still allowing control over who joins the Wave). Cool, no? And this is the first time that I think I'm going to find a collaboration tool useful, if not because Google are the people to do it, and this is the first all-in-one solution...

Of course, there have also been a number of controversies. One of the biggest was after Apple rejected Google's Google Voice from its App Store for reasons of "duplicating functionality" which really just means: Google were freaking us out! This little blunder got Apple yet more publicity for its archaic App Store rejection policies and its continual refusal to cite reasons for its many and varied rejections. As well, Google got a lot of publicity for its tribute to HG Wells, which confused most of the interwebs for a long time, complete with bizarre Twitter posts referencing GPS co-ordinates and the iconic "All your bases are belong to us" reference, which should be in every geek joke.

Of course, this series of doodles which had people confused for quite some time, shows exactly what I'm talking about, and what I have been saying the whole time: Google is huge. Just from the Guardian, a fairly respectable publication, a search about Google's little joke returns 96 results. Searching on Google News returns 182 separate publications with articles on the "Google Crop Circles". A comprehensive search on Google News for Google hits me with a staggering 1.66 million results. And that's just the news articles from Google News...

Google is now so large, it actually is a part of our society. If you ask someone on the street for 5 words relating to the Internet, Google is almost guaranteed to come up. And that's my point, if you could find it somewhere in that incredibly difficult to follow, attitude-ridden, information-starved and generally non-sensical stream of absolute nothingness...

The Return: Yahoo and Microsoft evokes flashbacks

Sorry to all my readers for the long hiatus, but I've had a lot of work on, and then I took a 3 week trip to France, and then had more work, but I'm back and hoping to return to my previous semi-regularity of posting.

Now this one is a little out of date, because it's been sitting here waiting to be published for a while. Enjoy anyway ...

But now, to the post proper. As is the buzz on every vaguely tech-interested news service, Yahoo and Microsoft have finally clinched some sort of deal together. While nobody has any strong details, it appears that Microsoft is the big brother in this little relationship, with some speculating that it could be the end of Yahoo. I, for one, believe they won't die out, but it won't be a good omen for Yahoo, who are already struggling against the friendly giant Google, and who are about to have half of their business stolen out from under them by Microsoft.

There is another question that is annoying me, and one that crops up so often i may as well rename the blog: Why?. (But FerretWhy just doesn't have the same ring...) Microsoft is not exactly short of a penny or two with the world's most heavily populated OS smothering the Earth, and they've just gone and put God-doesn't-even-know-how-much effort into creating, broadcasting, publicising and (as Microsoft tends to do) smothering everyone and anyone with "Bing!", which seems to be Live Search but with a new face, a less dorky name, and options to verbify it later. Although I doubt anyone's going to walk around saying, 'Why don't you Bing it', if not for the potential of horridly inappropriate mispronunciations, but more because Google is just sooo good, and soooo everywhere. And works so well as a verb...

So why, then, has Microsoft spent a good part of that fortune on buying a company that is being beaten silly by a certain company with one more letter in its name. And quite a lot larger than 1% of the market. Critics have suggested that its just for the advertising money, but this still just doesn't quite fit. For me, it evokes flashbacks of that wonderful tech match-up between AOL and Time Warner. Wow. I'm not sure I've seen a more woeful sop story from a company other than this one. If you're wondering what I'm rambling on about now, it's creatively discussed here)

As far as anyone can tell, nothings been set out about what's going to happen, or even what is happening. Only that Microsoft and Yahoo are getting together and what odd bedfellows they make

As usual, I could be wrong about all of this (which wouldn't be the first time) and it could just be money-hungry Microsoft trying to grab Yahoo's pathetic little share of the online advertising market. After all, they are feelng more than a little pressure from Google lately...

Is it really necessary?

Everyone. And i mean, everyone feels the need to hate the big guy. It's even more apparent in the tech world. Microsoft. Huge. Hated (although that might be for a different reason, something to do with their products being, i don't know, can't remember, maybe someone can help me in comments...). And the latest casualty to the We Hate the Big Guy Syndrome (WHTBGS) is Google. Everyone was just fine, using Google every day, it had become one of the most used verbs in the English language, and then, BANG, everyone hates it, and everyone should use Bing, because, well, it's not Google.

To the first of Google's new rivals (and probably the worst): Microsoft's Bing.

(That name could only have come from a Google wannabe, hoping to have a new verb entered into the dictionary: "to Bing". No chance, mate. Sorry about that.)

Microsoft's first disastrous attempt at a search engine Live Search, failed. No doubt about it. It Failed. The only traffic it received was from people who accidentally typed something in the IE search box, forgetting that they hadn't changed the default yet. That, and people living under a rock for the last 10 years, and/or those who live in the suburbs, have huge armchairs, are over the age of 75, and do crochet for a hobby. They don't know what that Internet thing is, but it scares them.

Anyway, the point is that while for Microsoft they couldn't just abandon the huge search sector of their business, but i think their usage stats are going to be a bit misleading, since everyone will use Bing, just cos they don't want to use Google. It's just not that good...

And now to Wolfram Alpha. I am no huge fan of Wolfram Alpha. There has been no secret hates, or shady commenting. I admit. I don't like Wolfram Alpha. I have near to zero use for a computational engine like this. I like Google. I like Google Squared. There is very little i would use Wolfram for, that i couldn't do in my head, have no use for, or want to know more about (i.e. Google it). When in want to know how fast 5mph is in m/s, Google tells me, followed by links to tell me exactly why. When i enter it into Wolfram Alpha, it accompanies it with 5mph in kilometres travelled per year, and a small series of increasingly useless data. I will admit that Alpha has its uses, but all those idiots claiming it is some kind of Google-slayer are just idiots. Alpha is for a different audience, and a different kind of search, where being limited to a small database, rather than a huge index doesn't matter. It may be good, but it's no Google beater, as much cos it's not even taking Google on (you'd be mad to! *cough* Microsoft *cough*)

There is also no getting around the fact tha Wolfram Alpha was made by some dude in his basement with too much time on his hands.

To the bigger issue here: The need to demolish Google. Google is incredibly useful, and it has transformed the Internet. There is no getting around it, and there probably never will be, just like there probably never will be an engine quite like Google. Do we need to fight it so harshly? Can't we all just get along?!!

To my devoted followers: This (suitably attitude-ridden) post also happens to be my blog's 50th post! Right from the start , through the shaky start , then the 10th post , the 25th , the 40th , and now the 50th.

I hope to continue well into the next 50 and beyond, with similarly high-quality, highly-objectionable, and highly-attitude-filled posts, to maintain my standards of awesomeness (unlike a certain other blog , which turned into absolute drivel, and was suitably rejected). Happy Birthday FerretTech!

The Google Empire.

Sure, we're all going to die. Google has reported its first quarterly drop in sales. OMG! It is also, however, accompanied by a more-than-pocket-change $17.8billion in cash and equivalents...

But I'm not here to talk about their overly boring financial statements, as interesting as some may find that, I'm here to talk about what I've dubbed the "Google Collective Principle". In my mind, it consists of a series of ever more complex statements effectively summarising people's behaviour with Google through my eyes. For your benefit, here is the biggest foundation of my principle in simpler terms: "Anyone who uses a Google service is incredibly likely to continue using other Google services".

Just to be clear, i'm not suggesting that using Google search will make you into an active Google advertiser. What I'm saying is similar to handing someone one end of a piece of string. Eventually, they're going to get mighty curious about what's on the other end and work their way down the string.
What I'm trying to prove here is that once someone starts dabbling in Google, even just for Gmail (but it's not the best example) they are probably going to wind up heading further into Google products. Who knows whether it is a benign curiosity, an overwhelming desire to have an online presence or what, but someone like Google having services for everything and anything gives rise to an explosion in the services used. Google's dominance over Yahoo! and Microsoft helps, but also the differing approach between Yahoo! (everything on one page, whether you like it or not, and loads of ads) and Google (autonomous services, each with a Google touch, and only minimal ads) stands out.

For example, Yours Truly has had a Google account (but not a Gmail one) since about 2005. Since then, i have replaced that with my current Google profile  and it accompanied an explosion in the Google Services I use from a simple Gmail account and iGoogle page, then Google Reader, then the floodgates opened and suddenly I had almost every service they offer. On my account settings page, I now have icons for :
1. AdSense
2. Blogger
3. Calendar
4. Gmail
5. Picasa Web Albums
6.Web History
7. Alerts
8. Bookmarks
9. Docs
10. iGoogle
11. Reader
12. Webmaster Tools
13. Analytics
14. Book Search
15. FeedBurner
16. Notebook
17. Talk
18. Youtube
19. News

Yes, 19 different services. In case you're wondering, Google has only 4 remaining services, being Groups, Directory, Scholar Search and Code. I even use Google Mobile!

This blog is the perfect example of my Google Collective Principle. First, I saw a couple of other people's blogs, and decided I wanted my own. So, already having a Google account, I chose Blogger. My Blog of course needed some tracking, so after my disastrous attempt using StatCounter, I reverted to Google Analytics, which is truly legendary, then I wanted to track my RSS feed, cue FeedBurner, indexing management, cue WebMaster Tools, picture integration, cue Picasa, and if I could be bothered I would have AdWords on my blog by now.

Feel free to comment and tell me I'm horribly, horribly wrong, but I still think that the Google Collective Principle stands...

The Broswer Wars continue...

After some positive starts from Google Chrome, it seems its support is dwindling somewhat. Firefox meanwhile has managed to stay pretty much the same while IE seems to have been gaining support.

At least on Ferret Tech Firefox/Windows still reigns, but we have some very weird setups going, including PS3's, what i think is my PSP, Konqueror (?), and all and every kind of weird Browswer/OS combo

Yes, you poor buggers, Chrome sits on a miserly 8.5% of my visits while Firefox romps home with a solid 55.36% majority. IE has made a big jump forward (BTW, 19% use IE6, 73% use IE7, and a random 7% use IE8. n00bs!) leapfrogging Chrome into second position with 17.6%.

Peculiarly, focusing on just Browsers (rather than Browser/OS combos) sees Firefox pull out 66% of the share, but IE and Chrome staying almost the same.

But of more interest are some of the weird choices. I've mentioned the Playstation 3/Playstation 3 entry but then we get some really odd Apple entries. The typical Safari/Macintosh ones sitting in a lonely 6th behind Firefox/Macinstosh! The we have Safari/Android? Who has an Android phone?

While on the topic of phones, what on Earth is a Danger Hiptop? Don't tell me it's that stupid little Hiptop Slide piece of cr** actually looking at my blog!

There was Firefox/Linux (probably Jackson), but Konqueror/Linux? Who? Why? What's wrong with you?

Safari/iPod. Yay! I have someone reading my blog who also happens to be such an iPod fanboy they couldn't be bothered using a real Web browser.

Camino/Macintosh? What even is Camino?

Mozilla Compatible Agent/(not set). i think that is my PSP there, but not so sure. If you're wondering, yes, the PSP's NetFront browser does run on the Mozilla engine/code.

PS3! Yay! Yay! Lots of Yay! PS3's will rule the world. (as long as we don't begin calling the PS3 the Skynet)

Safari/Windows... You're using Windows so use a real browser, idiot!

And last but not least. Safari/iPhone. oh my god, my life has just lost all colour and meaning....

UPDATE: RSS feeds are now delimited and complete reflections of the posts again.

First Aussie Android Phone Rejected

The Agora, amde by no-name company Kogan, will be the first Android phone to hit Aussie shores, but the Big Four telecoms are rejecting it pretty much out of hand.

Optus says it will probably work, but its not an Optus handset, so they won't even test it or look into it any further.

Telstra is running a similar line saying it should work, but it hasn't been "optimised" for their network, so there is no guarantee on quality of service...

3 say it might happen, saying Android is "an excellent platform", and saying they might launch an Android phone in the future, but they only say that the Agora should "in principle" work fine.

Vodafone, however, look like being the sole carrier for the Agora. From ZDNET:"Vodafone Australia continues to evaluate the Kogan Agora and will make further information available at a later date," a spokesperson said.

That's more positive but still no guarantees...

Android is definitely looking to rival WinMobile and Apple's proprietary systems with phones popping up everywhere: The HTC Dream, The T-Mobile G1 (with rumours of a G2 in the pipeline), the Agora, plus the Lenovo-badged oPhone, and a Samsung-built, Google-badged phone all in the works...

Hmmmmmm...

I have begun using Google Analytics after the disastrous lack of usability from my last Traffic Analysis Host, and so i have discovered a couple of useless but nonetheless interesting things about the traffic to my site, in particular about my readers browsers habits:

1. Chrome is the most used browser

Chrome holds the lead with an impressive 63% of my traffic, Firefox holds 25%, and IE a lone 12%.

2. Chrome users tend to stay longer, Firefox users return more often

Chrome users make up most of the new visits, whereas Firefox kicks ass at the returning visitors. Chrome users have 73.68% of the time spent on my site, Firefox 26.32%, and IE somehow has 0.00% of the average time on the site (?). Just 28% of my readers bothered to dig through my old posts (i.e. continue away from the landing page), the other 71-odd percent only reading the one page.

3. You are not all in Australia

In fact, all but one of you are in Brisbane, but someone visited my site from, wait for it, Ireland. That's right,a Paddy in Dublin actually looked me up. They were (funnily enough) a new visitor, but they were actually following me up after i commented on his blog, Oscar and Friends.

4. You guys spend more time on here than Average Joe

But you don't go as far into the site!

5.You all speak English

Kind of a given, but not all the same language. All but one of you are using en-us, but one of the Brisbanites has changed to en-gb. Odd...

6. Only 15% of you have widescreens

Just 14.29% of my traffic was running at 1280x800, the other 85.71% was using 1280x1024. Primitive.

7. You are spread across four different ISPs

42% use powertel limited, almost 30% use telstra, 14.2% use optus, and our resident Irishman uses ntl communications (Ireland) ltd

8. You come from all over the place

14% of you came from my other blog, the rest came from Google, Blogger, directly, or in the case of our favourite Irishman Oscar, from his own blog.

9. Connection speeds

43% of you use the speed referred to as T1, the other 57% weren't recognised. Probably too slow for our high standards.

10. You're an odd bunch.

No scientific backing here, just my instinct.

UPDATE: My blog is becoming truly international! I now have visitors from Hoboken, New Jersey, as well as from Orange Park, Florida (both came from google searches), and also from Danderyd, Sweden (this is actually our very own Irishman Oscar, but now hes in Sveden, probably driving a volvo, and listening to Abba CD's).

UPDATE II: We now also have a visitor from Singapore. Again from a google search using the keywords:

how to change to snipe in socom navy seals tactical strike in psp

Not going to find that here!

The foibles of Google Chrome

Chrome is a very potent browser, it works great, runs well and becomes pretty intuitive, but there are a couple of things that would make it a much better tool 

1. Customisation There has to be some actual customisation somewhere. Firefox's extensions and themes are great, and provide the user with almost unimaginable power over the browser as does the highly usable about:config and tools utilities. Even if they just included more options, it would be better...  

2. Incognito mode This is a great idea and should be on every browser. Similar things are available for Firefix, but they tend to do things like clear your history, disable cookies, scripts, java, passwords, etc etc. while they are enabled and this can be very irritating. The Chrome method of only cleansing when the window is closed is a good idea, but some things need tweaking. I don't want to have to open a new window for private browsing. It should be an option, but incognito tabs should also be an option. Simply changing the colour or the logo of the tab should be enough to identify it and this would be a bit less clumsy.  

3. More Web 2.0 integration Sure, the Google Gears Web App Shortcut works like a charm, but maybe a bit more, like integration with Gmail, Google Docs, or the legendary Google Reader... Don't ask me how, it just should in this new age of Netbooks and Web 2.0, if it wants to be a true Web 2.0 browser... 

It is a good browser, but it's not a great browser, and these little changes would go a long way to propelling it towards greatness...

Yes, this is going to divide the population like a skunk in a lift, but it needed to be said...

Android picking up speed, and various other phone news

Google's own phone OS, called Android (?) is now picking up speed, with another Android phone released recently (built by a no-name Taiwanese company) to arrive in Australia soon. Remember this is just weeks after its release, and there are already HTC phones to add to the other two Android handsets, and the new Lenovo-badged OPhone up against the mammoth Windows Mobile OS. Yeah okay, this isn't Google's first time taking large bites out of Microsoft, but it's like opening up the Twenty-Sixth Front...

Also making noises in the phone area is Palm (yes, remember them) who are set to unveil their new 'Nova' OS on January 8. Unfortunately, we won't see customer products until mid-2009

And now Garmin has jumped on the Smartphone bandwagon. Yes, it's a satnav maker, building phones. Their nuvifone is still coming, but has just passed FCC testing, so it's getting closer, (and we're all holding our breath, yawn!).

And to add to this huge pile of phone news, the rumours about the iPhone nano have resurfaced with possible case sizes surfacing on Crave showing a smaller iPhone in basic dimensions., which is to be expected, and apparently accessory brand XSKN has already produced a silicon style case for a shorter thicker iPhone. One month until MacWorld. Hmmmm...

And if you thought of the one country that would embrace phones and technology into every part of their life, it probably wouldn't be Estonia would it? They have decided to allow citizens to vote in their 2011 parliamentary elections on their cell phones! They buy a special chip for their phones that verifies their identity, then once installed, Estonians can use their phones to vote, without going to a ballot. Genius! From Estonia!??

Windows 7 and Microsoft

Okay, so we've been told so many times that Microsoft is staying Personal Computer-oriented and not going Web 2.0 and keeping it that way...

That's all well and good and i've read so many articles saying that is the way it should be...

And then I walk down to the city and read that Microsoft is releasing Azure alongside the supposedly PC-based Windows 7. Now in case you hadn't noticed, Azure is not PC-based.

For those uneducated of you, Azure is a system that actually replaces Office, and other apps with a server-side system of 'cloud apps' that each user could 'connect' to in order to empower their computer's abilities.

There are two problems with this. First up, why buy Office for a couple extra features. I'm paying $450-odd dollars for the ability to make a mail-merge (oh yeah, i do those all the time). Releasing Azure as part of a product range made for PC's, is like giving a gun to prison inmate, it just guarantees that things are gonna screw up.

Second problem, unless they do things like shipping computers with it, setting defaults to it, or integrating it with Win7, i find it difficult to believe that anything Microsoft comes up with will be more successful than Google's efforts.

They do have one thing going for them but, Google is a bit of a 'fringe' company compared to Microsoft. The other bigger thing is that Microsoft's monopoly (yes, it's a monopoly) on shipping OS's means that every copy of Windows will encourage and coerce every Windows user to begin using Azure rather than begin using Google. While previous Google users will probably continue to use Google Apps/Docs, new cloud users will be likely to move toward a system thats designed to integrate with almost every single computer on the planet. While Chrome users will be familiar with the concept of web applications and shortcuts as will anybody who has used an eee PC (by ASUS). This is a great idea, being able to run cloud apps off a local terminal, but it is a bit of a problem for Google since every Windows user will be able to run Azure as if it was Office and probably have it interact locally with their machine.

It will be a sad day, when Google Docs calls it quits, and by then it will be Netscape all over again...

Google can't be that old...

Can you believe Google has made it to ten years old already. Google seems like something that has been simultaneously around forever, as well as a real newcomer.

Google has made a pretty big point of their milestone, with their Project 10 thingymabob (its a word now). Some of it is quite interesting in particular their April Fool's Day jokes from their long and illustrious history. PigeonRank has got to be one of their best...

They have also released a copy of their 2001 Search Databases. I haven't had a chance to fiddle yet, but further reading reveals some interesting things:

"September 11" yields a bunch of random dates and places.
"Paris Hilton" goes to the actual Hilton Hotel in Paris
"Kevin Rudd" you've got to go to result #5 to get to our idiotic PM

Any Search engine that relegates Krudd to fifth spot has got to be good...

But on a more serious note, has anyone noticed that not only is google eerily good but it has entered society to such an extent that it is both a common noun and a verb.

If there's one thing Google can be happy about it's that has anybody actually heard someone say "Just go Live Search it".

Anyone?
I Didn't Think So...

The Wide and very confusing world of browsers

Now i was reminded by a couple of friends this week about the ongoing browser war, and this got me thinking. (Hey, I do Geography, i got plenty of time to think)

Has anyone actually tried to count all the browsers available or god forbid, tried to download them all...
Think about it... There's the obvious ones : Firefox, IE7, and Safari.
But then there is your slightly more fringe browsers: Chrome, Seamonkey, Flock, Opera, Konqueror etc etc.
The list never actually seems to end, its like a new day, a new browser. Wouldn't it be easier, if we all just made one or two awesome browsers (did anyone say Chrome and Firefox) and just used them?

Okay so maybe i'm getting off into my own little Utopian world again, but it would make things easier.