There's a shiny new version of Mozilla's stand-alone browser, formerly known as Phoenix, then Firebird, but now called Firefox. They promise they won't change it any more. I didn't like it at first, partially just because a new name for something is never quite as good as the old one (*cough*Case*cough*), and partly because it didn't make sense. What the heck is a firefox? But now I know that "fire-fox" is a translation of the Chinese name for the red panda, and after seeing a few pictures, I am an instant convert. Instead of "The browser, reloaded" (which I'll grant is clever in a pop-culture sort of way), their tag line should be "as powerful as its namesake is cute." And they could have a web button with a picture instead of their logo. I bet their adoption rate would soar.
Speaking of web buttons, I'm torn. I'm a big fan of CSS, XHTML, and accessibility buttons, which are about raising awareness of standards and showing that you care—I proudly slap standards buttons on my sites. But a browser button smacks of the dark ages of "best viewed with" buttons. On the other hand, good CSS designs often are best viewed with a compliant browser. But back to the first hand, I myself use several different, non-Firefox, highly compliant browsers (Camino and Safari), so I don't think it's right to presume to tell people that they should use Firefox if they are in a similar situation. But returning yet again to the second hand, the vast majority of people using the web don't have a clue that IE isn't "the internet", so getting the word out is important.
Of course, the bottom line is that buttons aren't likely to make a noticeable difference anyway: the people who put buttons on their sites are likely to have predominantly readers who already know about other options, and the people most likely to click on (or even notice) the buttons even more so. The real battle will be fought on a person-by-person level, telling family and friends and, in many cases, doing the install and bookmark import for them.
Note to self: convert people to Firefox (using pictures if necessary) instead of Firebird, and hope there aren't any more name changes that might confuse converts.
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