This is really about the tech equivalent of fashion. You're not still using last year's cool browser, are you? I doubt there is enough difference between the b

This is really about the tech equivalent of fashion. You're not still using last year's cool browser, are you? I doubt there is enough difference between the browsers to make a meaningful productivity impact for most end users (the population at HN might probably has more exceptions to that statement). The only significant difference is confidentiality, where I trust Mozilla far more than Google. Here is what is really going on: 1) IE defined the web for most people, with 95% market share. 2) Firefox became the new, cool alternative, with some social/political appeal (free-as-in-speech, non-profit mission, openness, anti-corporate), and the appeal of being the cutting-edge and the shiny-new thing. 3) 'New' and 'cool' have shelf lives, slowing your subjective experience of browsers and skinny blue jeans. Also, Mozilla lacked a marketing budget and department to manage and refresh their image, as other vendors might have done: 'In limited release beta preview: Firefox XE! Be the first person you know to get it! It's burning up the 'net!' 4) Google was an uber-cool company, and they put out a browser, which became the new uber-cool thing. 'You're not still using Firefox, are you?' (Actually said to an end-user I was helping by a technorati wannabe.) 5) Chrome might have performed better for a time, but the browsers were neck and neck in performance tests for many years while people rationalized their love of cool. As I said, I doubt there was much real difference, except in some specialized circumstances. 6) Now repeat #3, except this time for Chrome. The subtext and whole point of this article is, 'is Chrome no longer cool?' It's as if the author is throwing some red meat in the waters, to see if the piranha are ready to swarm. Perhaps Mozilla and Google should pump in fake engine noise.