What is a browser?

Scott from Google went out on the streets of New York and asked people if they know what a browser is.

The results may or may not surprise you. What they’ll indicate is how those of us embedded with tech, as it were, use common terms like ‘browser’ which many people still simply don’t understand.

Maybe that’s the surprise. Try it on your mother, though, and see what answer you get.

Take a look:

Here’s the start of Wikipedia’s definition:

A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web.

So it’s not search itself (as many in Google’s video believe) but a software application.

Glad that’s sorted out. Now, what’s a ‘software application’? You can read the Wikipedia definition if you like.

Personally, I often start to describe things like browsers and apps as “a tool that lets you get things done” and develop a conversation from there depending on what and how much a person wants to know.

Often, less is all you really need.

Wonder if the results would have been any different if Scott had been in London, Paris, Madrid, Singapore, etc.

(Via Ghacks)