The Best

I use Yahoo Answers a lot, and one of the most common questions comes in the format "Who/What is the best . . . " then some field or product is added, e.g. What is the best Browser, Who is the best search engine, which is the best operating system etc.  The 'Best' is a matter of opinion and it always will be.  The reason I say that is because our experiences with products and services are on an individual level - take me for example, I have had horrible service from Domino's pizza and would never eat there again, yet I love McDonald's and have nothing but good things to say about them.  You on the other hand will have your own experiences and your own opinions.

Broadband is one of my pet peeves when it comes to the question of who is the best in terms of service and quality etc..  Here as with everywhere else it entirely depends on your environment, if you have a low quality phone line then you will get a crap speed, regardless of who you are with.  Yet people still ask, who is the best broadband supplier, who should they switch to?  The answer for me is never to categorically say who or what I think is the best, simply to say who I am with and what I get, then they can judge for themselves.

Which is the best web browser, again relies on a number of factors, one browser may be faster for me than it is for you and vice versa - if this wasn't the case we would all be using the same one.  Chrome is touted by many as the fastest browser on the market, but for me that's not the case, firefox outperforms chrome for me, and Opera outperforms the lot, but I can't use Opera as my main browser at the moment as it doesn't have site preferences for zoom levels, there's just one setting to cover all sites which is not practical for me, firefox does offer this feature and everything else, albeit at the cost of using more RAM than Opera does.

The point is that the question of who is the best is always going to be answered with an opinion, be wary of those whose answers are portrayed as fact as ultimately they are deceiving you, they are assuming their experience is universal - arrogance which knows no bounds, frequently breeding the retort "well you must have set it up wrong because it works great for me" - that's the point what works for you doesn't necessarily translate onto others.  Rather amusingly this type of comment has been referred to by some friends online as "factinions" - opinions portrayed as facts.  I must admit I am guilty of this at times but I usually try to avoid it - not always successfully though :p