I’m an Information Systems student who has worked extensively with and knows plenty of Computer Science students. Since the other authors of this site are in the latter category, and a lot of their friends must read this site at one point or another, I’m going to assume a basic knowledge of the recent happenings related to Google. For anyone who doesn’t keep up with the digital times: They’ve released a browser, called Chrome.

Google have tried hard to differentiate their new browser from the other major four browsers on the scene right now. They’ve done a good job, as far as I’m concerned, except for in one area. Here are the icons for the current market leaders in the browser space:

Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari

These are the four browsers that currently rule the roost when it comes to surfing the internet. Odds are 99% of people in the world are using one of these browsers.

Here, then, is the icon for Chrome, Google’s new browser:

Google's Chrome

Hopefully anyone who’s interested in pattern recognition (So, the autistics amongst you) will have noticed something that all five browser icons have in common. If it’s not jumping out of the page at you yet, the similiarity between all these icons is that they’re as round as a button.

After all their efforts, it turns out all Google needed in order to differentiate themselves was to use a square fucking icon.