I remember the first web browser I ever saw. I was working at NYU at the time. Gopher was the hot technology du jour and of course we were running a server. A colleague called me into his office and showed me some early version of NCSA Mosaic running on an X Terminal (which in those days referred to a piece of hardware). I don't remember my exact words, but they were something along the lines of "meh". Another in a long line of personal failures to recognize the next new thing before it bit me in the ass.
Once the browser was invented, browser wars were not far behind. Netscape Navigator jumped out to an early lead, soon to be overtaken by Internet Explorer which held sway for many years, and is only now getting overtaken in turn by Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and a host of minor players.
But, you knew all this already. So, why am I bothering to write about such an obvious topic? The reason is because (at least according to Google Analytics), I seem to have a very strange readership. 70% Chrome, 15% Safari, 9% Firefox. IE is down there at 3%. Not sure what it means. Maybe it's just that the same discerning audience who wants to read what I write is also discerning enough to shun horrible browsers.