Firebird vs IE

“Maybe you can pass those sentiments onto the IE team. Theyre still about 4 years behind the game. Just look at the work being pumped into Firebird, and it becomes terribly obvious how rudimentary IE is these days.” my 1337 nephew Deke says in a comment on my post about WinPlanet's top apps for 2003.

So I checked out Firebird 0.7 and I quite honestly can't see the fuss. Maybe it's underneath the covers or something (a little like Office 2003), but the main reasons they give for “why you should switch” on their website don't really get me licking my lips.

1. Tab-browsing. I tried that ages ago with an IE skin and I got rid of it. Opening up new IE windows is just as easy AFAIAC and when you are DSLd, you arent really waiting for stuff to download anyway.

2. Popup blocking. Got it with my Google toolbar.

3. Better bookmarks and history. This sounds nice. I hate the way Favorites works in IE. I have hundreds and hundreds of sites in there and they are all over the place... mind you, since RSS, I don't seem to go to “sites” much anymore unless they are linked from a blog feed...

4. Find stuff faster. Basically they seem to have integrated the Google toolbar. I've already got it.

5. Best Accessibility. Keyboard shortcuts. Nice, but I use a mouse anyway so...

6. More responsive. Not the version I installed. It was clunky as hell.

7. Simplified User Interface. Doesn't seem to be much more than I get with “Full Screen” on IE.

anyway, yadda yadda. Of course, I could be wrong (and probably am). I have to be wrong about something eventually, the numbers are against me. :-)

ashe at Grumpy Monkey likes it.

So does Jake at 8bitjoystick.com. But his reasons don't seem to be any different or more compelling than those on Mozilla's site. Am I missing something?