Maybe you noticed this ages ago, but the thought just occurred to me (and most of the rest of our crew after I pinged the list) this afternoon. Why is it that every web browser has a round icon/logo?

Don’t get me wrong – we kicked it around on the list and there’s the obvious roundness in the phrase World Wide Web. But is there any other sector where the iconography is this uniform?

Netscape used to have a big, boxy icon, but even that vanished as time went by. With the digging I did this afternoon, I only found one non-round icon: Midori (right). And even it has kind of a squashed-but-still-round look to it.

Oddly, Opera, whose name “sounds” like it should be the roundest logo of the bunch, is noticeably less round than the others I shopped together.

What’s the deal? Is the circle just the ultimate shape for a browser logo?

Could there be some kind of Illuminati-run conspiracy at work?

Sesame Street was all about circles the other day, maybe those creepy little muppets are behind it all…