An Update on Common Browser and OS Misconceptions

Topic: Usability

I recently was talking to some friends about the current state of browsers and operating systems and how the next year or two could really shake up what’s been traditionally considered the norm. You know, the IE sucks, Chrome is the fastest and most standard-compliant browser, OS X has the best usability and Windows is for the plebes mode of thinking that people have fallen into. It’s an easy mode to get used to, but that could be changing.

First, here’s some benchmarks from September 27th from Lifehacker. There’s an article about a very promising IE10, then there was a follow-up two days later about the upcoming Opera build.

As for Windows 8, here’s a good video from June demoing some features and the updated UI (the Internet’s Wadsworth Constant applies, so feel free to skip to 30% in).

Granted, until you use it yourself, it’s hard to say what the truth is when updates are announced. Personally, I thought the iPad UI seemed silly because it was just a spread out iPod/iPhone UI with wasted space, but using it is still really nice. So, we’ll see how things change.