I don't see why you think that is weird. -and instead of -a and -not instead of ! are not an issue. They are, respectively, synonyms. But -name and -path are completely different. The -name primary is not affected by the -E option and the pattern used for filename (not pathname) matches is a shell pathname matching pattern. So:

Code:

find -E -name '.*(Safari|[Oo]pera|Firefox|[Mm]ozilla).*'

is looking for a file with a name that starts with a <period> followed by any string of zero or more characters followed by an <open-parenthesis> followed by the string Safari followed by a <vertical-bar> followed by an upper-case or lower-case o followed by the string pera|Firefox| followed by an upper-case or lower-case m followed by a <close-parenthesis> followed by a <period> followed by a string of zero or more characters. My guess would be that you don't have any directories that are matched by that filename matching pattern so no directories are pruned from your search.

As you have been told before, if you don't tell us what operating system and shell you're using, questions like this waste a lot of our time and yours guessing at what might or might not be failing on your end because you're using options that are only available on some systems and are using some options that may behave differently on different operating systems.

Furthermore, your specification is not at all clear. Sometimes you're trying to exclude pathnames that contain a directory name that is a case-insensitive spelling of "keyword". Other times you trying to exclude regular files (no matter what the file's name is) if the file contains a case-insensitive spelling of keyword.

You haven't shown us any sample filenames or pathname nor their contents for files that should and should not have their pathnames printed, what should be printed in addition to their pathnames (if anything), ...

Please give us a clear specification of: