What greeted me was a series of prompts for "Your Amazon Browser: Internet Explorer 8 Optimized for Amazon.com"

Clicking in, there was an ad copy that mentioned a custom toolbar that makes shopping easier, and a disclaimer that the toolbar features Alexa and will collect your browsing information. Having Amazon peddle this made me feel cheated.

I use Google Chrome and couldn't be happier. But I feel incredibly bad for the average computer user with Internet Explorer (unpatched) with 10 toolbars for Yahoo Search, Bing, Amazon, et cetera.

It's the direct opposite of the Apple App Store experience. Any company can make a quick buck by spreading their toolbar. Microsoft doesn't curate the browser plugins in any way. A typical user is not savvy and installs everything "free." This results in a terrible computing experience.

I'm not even mentioning spyware -- only the "legitimate" browser plugins such as Yahoo, Bing, Amazon, etc. Some friends have every single one installed.

This is a problem that bothers me as a hacker. What can be done? Some thoughts:

- Promoting platforms instead of toolbars (e.g. Chrome plugins). More useful features (like Rapportive) instead of yet another search box.

- Browsers that implicitly force good UI (e.g. allowing no more than 1 toolbar to be installed)

- Curating plugins, App Store-style.