Sunday, October 04, 2009

Innocent Intent?

It's one thing ("clever marketing," f'rinstance) to come up with a Web-browser intended for some particular group -- shotgunners, diabetic GLBT acrobats, European-Americans or African-Americans; and speaking of the last example, it's quite another thing to give it a name that suggests a profound ignorance of history.

C'mon, dad-rat it, there was already plenty of paranoia to go around.

8 comments:

sam said...

Nice snark, pretty one.

Oh, the evil thoughts going through my head, the things you can do through a browser SDK.

If I had the time or inclination, which I don't.

Anonymous said...

Maybe I could write an ad blocker for it, and call it Cotton Picker.

Good grief. A race-specific browser is bad enough, but this?

Jim

perlhaqr said...

WTFF?

"A browser for white people"?

Firefox won't cut it for whitey, somehow?

LabRat said...

....First I was offended, then I wondered if the white people browser would let me search for fried chicken recipes, Ludakris, or hair straightener.

karrde said...

So...that whitebird browser's download link points to a page called Safari at Apple.com

Is this somebody's idea of a joke?

Roberta X said...

1. A. As far as I know, the "White Bird" browser is a spoof.
B. i. Yes, the D/L link does point to Apple's excellent Safari browser. They've called it that for years.
ii. As far as I know, Apple does not discriminate on any basis.
iii. That said, you have to admit the smug GenXster "Mac dude" in their "Mac vs. PC" ads is about as whitebread as anyone gets (and that includes the earnest-if-clueless "PC guy," who at least evinces some awareness of his unhipness).

2. A. As far as I know, the "Blackbird" browser is entirely serious -- and at least as earnest as "PC guy" referred to above.
B. That said, the name would make me very leery of it. Srsly, just plug the word into a search-engine first, for pity's sake!

3. As far as I know, there's no gunnie-specific browser. There was a search engine optimized for the outdoors/shooting community but I haven't seen it in years; Bing and Google have the market just about cornered.

Anonymous said...

A specific browser for anything at all, though? Why? Imagine tailoring a new cartridge to a particular race, that makes no sense either.

Jim

karrde said...

Good response, Roberta. (In my defense, I've been using Linux for so long that when I think browsers, I think Mozilla/Firefox and the Lynx/Links family. What's this Safari thing, and how is Google's Chrome different from the Chrome toolset that some browsers used?)

My only question is, is this an Apple-official joke, an Apple-unofficial-joke, or just an Apple-snob-joke?

Inquiring minds want to know.