But that is after the item.
That also works in Chromes super bar thing.

Beer in chrome goes find me beer.
as does "Where do I buy strawberry beer?"

But I'd never think of writing "? Beer" to find beer.

> HTTP components in language API's

I'm going to assume you mean complete stack (HTTP, HTML renderer, JS Engine etc). While the HTTP layer is fairly simple (and thus implement well in a ton of APIs for each of the major platforms), the rest is BIG and to do it well is hard so it is not done well all that often. So what you end up with is either a re-skinned IE, Firefox or Chrome.

Now these exists, for a bunch of different reasons for example before IE had tabs a tabbed IE existed and people who want to stay in the late 1990s have SeaMonkey. However most end up with an interface that is a lot like Chrome/Firefox/IE (as it is a good interface) but without the plugin support.

> Though I wonder how many companies would block you from accessing their site if the browser doesn't have the correct branding

I use to happen a lot and that is why we now have stupid user agent strings.

Mine is currently:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/33.0.1750.117 Safari/537.36

Mozilla/5.0 - Pretend to be Firefox
AppleWebKit/537.36 - And Safari
KHTML - Base of Safari/Chrome
Gecko - Back to Firefox
Chrome - I could be Chrome
Safari - Of Safari

The only one missing is IE. And I've seen many a user agent string that includes that as well (while not actually being IE).

How is that intuitive?

The move to Cyanogenmod (or a like) is tempting, but to uninstall none-system apps I should not need to.

Plus as I'm using a Note I'd be worried that I'd the features that I do want (S-Note for example) will either not work or would require magic. And I'm lazy. :)

Because I don't want a phone. I want a PDA.

I also want to phone people every once in a blue moon and have always-on access to various IM clients. I don't want to carry two devices.

Now you don't want this and it is great that you can get a device that meets your needs. I can get a device that meets my needs but alas now they all come with shit installed.

What does this give Amazon?

Up to 1998 freedom of expression was protected under common law rather than a single document. In 1998 the UK passed the Human Rights Act which covers freedom of expression. Like the US this is not absolute, and I believe in the case of libel even sticker than the US.

The UK does not have a separate "freedom of press" as it is covered by the freedom of expression. Anyone can start up a new news paper and express themselves.

> The hard part is making something that humans will like.

Reality TV has shown this is very easy. :)

I thought the point of Chrome native stuff was that a layer of abstraction was removed?

You can get something very much like that. Take a look at the low end LGs. The LG Optimus Chat C550 claims a 18-odd days battery life and Android based.

Right now we have the best range of phones every. Everyone can get something that is close to what they want, from "true" dumb/feature phones (Nokia 100), to high end feature phones (Nokia 515), up to basic, long-lasting smart phones (Optimus Chat C550) right the way up full-blown PDAs with phones attached (Galaxy Note).

Alas a set of people refuse to look beyond the headline and start screaming about "dumb phones" without ever actually looking into what is on the market.