For African-American Web surfers who just can’t relate to their browsers, there’s hope: the Blackbird Web browser.
Billed as “the Web browser for the African-American community,” it’s a modification of Mozilla Firefox with a different color scheme — black and earthy shades of green and brown — as well as certain built-in features meant to appeal to black Americans.
These include “Black Search,” which brings up results tailored to what its backers assume are African-American interests; “Black News Ticker,” which does more of the same; and “Blackbird TV,” which is “the best of Black video on the Web.”
“We believe that the Blackbird application can make it easier to find African-American related content on the Internet and to interact with other members of the African-American community online by sharing stories, news, comments and videos via Blackbird,” reads a press release posted by 40A, the somewhat mysterious firm behind the browser, on the CrunchBase Web site.
Downloads (for Windows XP and Vista only) are free; the project claims to be funded by ads and targeted links.
Reaction from black bloggers, tech writers and commenters has been, shall we say, a bit mixed.
“Wait, why do I need a special Web browser?” asked Gizmodo writer Adrian Covert. “Last time I checked, I don’t physically browse the Internet any different than anyone else.”
