Biased Problem

Preferences are a "problem" in our online communities today, isn't it? When someone comments on a new feature added in the (for example) Opera browser, a Mozilla or Firefox fenatic has to come and start a flame war on how much better Firefox is.

Well, personally I find Firefox very satisfactory and fast and yes I have to admit that there was a time and sometimes I still fall for the "this thing is better than that one" gig. My friend once joked about this : "Hmm... so what happened to Intel?".
I have to say that a couple of years ago I had this huge grudge against AMD. To me Intel and Windows was the way to go (that was at the time when Intel had the old Pentium III). Today, I use AMD, Linux & Windows and nVidia. I prefer nVidia over ATI at the moment not necessarily because of speed or whatever but because of development and installation ease (especially in Linux). Try installing an ATI driver in Linux and see what I mean.

But now here's the problem. You like a certain program or hardware so much that when someone else starts commenting on a competing one, you start going defensive. Why, I don't know. Maybe some of us just have a competing or jealous spirit in us or something. The thing is, why start such a fiasco? If a person prefers Windows over Linux, let him! Maybe he does things where Windows provides a better or easier way than anything else. We can argue and say that he didn't try anything else. But which person who comes from a strong Windows background (knowing only Windows) whould dare step into the scary world of console commands and kernel compilation? ;) Sure thanks to KDE and Gnome, it is steadily changing but if you still want to accomplish the vast majority of Linux chores, you still need to know your way around a console.

Its fine to recommend a "better" alternative to someone, but the one thing I think most of us need to learn is to not be dominant over what we think is better or not. Like I said, I find myself guilty of this now and again (just to clear a few things out), but this is what I feel on this matter. I want to change. A guy once said that if we just continue to persue one company or product, we would be so strongly associated with it, that they can make with us whatever they want. I try to choose my programs & hardware according to a certain criteria. I like Windows because its quick and simple to get something done (in a sence) + I am more accustomed with it than Linux. I also like Linux because it can provide all the other things, such as being a router at home, etc. I like nVidia because ATI still has to get whipped up into shape and get well documented for development (since AMD bought them out) and I like AMD because... well its cheaper than an ordinary Pentium, its fast & reliable and I would not buy a Celeron because I found those things to be very troublesome (to make it an understatement) even if you didn't, I have but I won't hold it against you if you owned one.

What do you guys feel on the subject? Am I just being too naive, or impractical?

Well hope to hear what you have to say. This is afterall something that happens occasionally at our local forum/blog/etc.