The most insidious trend I've noted recently is that formerly reputable news sites have been frequently sending me, via their links to sources, to sites where the page will not load unless you override your popup blocker and "allow popups."

An isolated link recently took me to a site that insisted "this site includes features you will not be able to enjoy unless you install the latest version of one of these browsers." IE, that I normally use was listed, but I already use the latest version available for anything but Win8 (unless you want a "beta version" that Microsoft will let you have for Win7 and that's not been favorably reviewed by anyone when used other than in Win8).

Since the site was at Google, and Microsoft and Google have been nominally "at war" with each other for some time now, I'd understand if IE had been omitted from the list to convince people that they must use something "not Microsoft." The only alternate explanation I can think of is that Google thinks if they can convince people that they MUST USE WIN8 they'll find it so bad that they'll all switch to whatever that Google thing is that they've been advertising - or maybe just to a complete OS from "anybody but Microsoft."

We used to be called "citizens of the internet." Now we're all mostly just "victims." (Or that other term - "warm meat.")

John