Possibly including an easy to use standalone quake server browser with nquake/ezquake or
retrieve instant server info through http://www.quakeservers.net/quakeworld/servers/so=8/
It's pretty important since it's the only way to find good servers for most beginners. Thanks.

Would be cool if FTE's server browser was ported to ezQuake. The current one is much more complicated than need be. The one in FTE strikes a good balance I think.

Yes.
1) removing the need for "sources" (using one and only master server by default)
2) better GUI

That's great, thank you.

I use GameScanner which gets the info from quakeservers.net too:

http://etsv.cludden.se/news.php

It works perfectly with QuakeWorld, try it!

I know there are good scanners out there, but what concerns me more is that an average user won't know about those specialized scanners so quakes default browser is very important for beginners. I remember when i first turned on quake I couldn't find any servers so I just thought that nobody plays the game anymore and it took me at least another year to give quake another chance and then I took it more seriously and found quakeservers.net.

eksy makes a good point about the first time a player starts QW. Maybe an easy (temporary) fix would be to add a step to the nQuake installer that simply says "We are trying our best to make the in-game browser great, but some players like to use QuakeServers.net or GameScanner - prehaps you would too." with links ofc.

True. I've added quakeservers.net as a master server in the ezquake browser, but I usually use GameScanner.

The truth is that most people don't know much about quakeworld and how to play it. I've also read stories about people buying quake from steam and have lot's of problems getting to play it.