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The Firefox 3.5 vs. IE8 Deathmatch

29.04.2009
Every day I sit at my computer and open two browsers: and Internet (first 6, then 7 and, as of late, 8). "Why do I do that?" I've often asked myself. It's been going on for years. I maintain two separate "browser lives," in a sense. Firefox opens my and mail accounts. Internet Explorer is aimed at my banking and stock trading accounts. I have news sites as part of the home pages for both browsers. One is CNN (for my serious news) and the other is MSN (more for entertainment tidbits). Yes, I'm living a dual browser life, and I know I'm not alone.

Tuesday, however, I made up my mind to drop Firefox altogether. I wrote a chapter for my upcoming "Windows 7 Spotlight" book on Internet Explorer 8, and I was so impressed by the features that I decided Firefox was history. Yesterday morning, I found out that Firefox released the 3.5 beta (4), and many features are the same as in IE8. And so the personal war rages on.

[ InfoWorld's Roger A. Grimes puts them to the test. ]

Let's take a look at some of the features that they each have.

Obviously they both possess a multiple-tab capability. Personally, I like that IE has a tab waiting for you to click to open. Google Chrome has that as well. Firefox now has a little plus sign to allow the same functionality -- a small but important improvement I've been waiting for.