The anwswers are a bit strange and out of this world but can be a little bit explained by the fact that the man with the mic introduces himself as a Google employee (or can be related to Google in any other way).

The streets are the wrong place to ask for this, geeks are inside where their computers are ;)

wow!

No shock or even surprise here. I knew that already. I deal with such people on a daily base. Now get out on the streets and ask them what an operating system is.

It's a beautiful reality check.You spend too much time online and you forget many many ppl don't understand that what is happening is really significant. Is it important to know what browser you are using? As long as it's not Internet Explorer probably not!

This is what happens when you ask Americans

This is maybe not a very representative research, although the outcomst is striking. The guy @ 1'17" says it all: switching browsers is done by others. (If you don't know what it is, you don't know what you miss)

Amazing !

Hmmmmmm. Easy for us to point and laugh from our Geekosphere but remember, most people don't know what an internet connected handheld PIM is - they have a Blackberry that does email and calendars. They don't know what a portable player of compressed music files is - they have an iPod. The best sellers of our time are those that simplified the technology into an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand proposition!

That guy was the best. He said with so much confidence. This is the kind of person who can talk their friends into buying the next big stock.

Why would people know what a browser is? It's not important. People don't know what a taskbar is, or a desktop, or an ALT key... What's most surprising here is that someone bothered to make a video to point out such an obvious detail!

"..be glad he did not search for Google first"..You just made me spill my coffee. Now I have to change my shirt. It was worth it though.

I wonder that being in NYC, a city full of iPod, hotspots, smartphones and such things people were a little bit skilled about this topic.
I proposed on my blog about doing this interview here in Italy, I am sure that the reslut could even be worst...

JAJAJAAJ this is just unbelivible, I am a web designer an we effort to make sites work in all browsers, to discover users don´t even know what a browser is damn ! :(

This doesn't surprise me at all. I don't really find it shocking or worrying. Most 'normal' people only care about turning on their computer and 'browsing' the web. What do they care how they do it?

It's not surprising that those answers came up. I always quiz people about their browsers and search engines and I get similar answers too. It's really hard to define `browser` without giving an example but if I had to, it would simply say what that one guy did, it's the program you view the web with, which isn't a very strong answer by my standards. While I would like more people to know what a browser is, I don't think it matters if they know as long as they don't use the one browser that is the bane of web developers.

I have 2 quick questions for you all(and no using the Yahoo):
Do you really know how your toilet works and can you fix it if it doesn't?

Thought not.

We all to often equate ignorance with stupidity. As technology advances and information increases logarithmically-real knowledge becomes more or more specialized. Or even esoteric. There is too much out there for us to absorb. So we are all ignorant of many, many things...but not necessarily stupid.

Agreed. You shouldn't need to know what a browser is before you can surf the web. The term "browser" is already becoming old-school as we move into the era of cloud computing and web-enabled smart phones. What's important is the information, not the technology. The technology will always change.

Well, isn't it generally accepted that Americans are dumb? I always knew that those peanut-sized brains don't top an iq higher then an average room temperature...

Thing is, most people buy a pc, a broadband package, oblivous to the basic workings of a computer. How many people even bother to read the product manuals? Everything works out, surfing etc, so they really don't have (or need) the background knowledge. I mean, if there's a problem, they just call customer-support and let them tear their hair out :).

Fucking retards. Russia is better than US and A.

Not surprised at all... and its just a tool. Most people don't know whats under the hood of their car, but still drive (and most do it very well). What is interesting is the name brand affiliation that Google - it is becoming synonymous with the internet.

I wonder just how many people they had to interview to get this number of people who didn't know what a browser was. I'll bet there were plenty of people who knew exactly what a browser was.

Go to the German government and ask ANY politician what a browser is ... they are the 92% of the folks NOT knowing this. And THEY want to make decisions about the internet, etc... 8-o

cu, w0lf.

You can use the web without knowing what a browser is...

A friend of mine was looking for a new computer and asked to see my Mac. The first question was: "Does it come with the Internet on it?" I was very confused because the Internet is not "on" any one computer. I finally realized she thought the "e" icon for Internet Explorer *WAS* the Internet. I am not surprised people do not know what a browser is.

We don't need to know what a browser is to copulate.
Sorry man.

Boy! This is an eye opener. I have to start using "browser" less in my web copy....

My point of view to this video is same as "flapane" except the word "reslut".