Something no one else would want - a little colored dot next to HN user names keyed to their generation, so I could quickly tell why none of the commenter mentioned AOL.

Great joke, but taking the word literal and not as product name, it makes a lot of sense to describe chrome as a tool to explore the internet.

(Edit: thinking about it, I think generic terms like "Internet Explorer" should not be trademarkable at all, also I just learned, that also Microsoft "stole" the name and had to pay in a settlement..)

More of a navigator for the 'scape of the net.

No, I think it was meant literally. Like the IT Crowd skit where Jen refers to the Internet Explorer desktop shortcut as "the button for the internet".