Hrm, my previous post seems to be farked, can't edit to make the link show, sorry. Here is the site that explains the spell checker:

Getting textarea spell checking to work with Firefox 0.8

Reply #12 By: Dan Kaschel - 3/6/2004 1:52:13 AM Umm.. about the ctrl-click thing, in IE it's shift-click. I like IE, it runs great on my computer. ~Dan

yeah but it opens up a new window and that clutters up the taskbar. in avant or firefox the shift/ctrl-click opens it up in a tabon the browser bar. it's also easier to close a tab than a taskbar window (at least in avant you just double click the tab, which is closer than the x button at the top corner).

I don't really think it's an accident that IE is is under-developed.   I think that Microsoft isnt allowed to push the line on that front....too much integration.  But what they do leaves them always two steps ahead of the spider.

They cater to developers.  How do you script FireFox to do anything?

 

Microsoft will win the browser because it "won't own it".  Instead they're just turning IE into an abstaction layer for WWW communication.   How many apps do you know these days that have some sort of web functionality?   Alot of them use IE.    Do you think microsoft cares that MyIE2 exists as a product?  I don't think so, i think it's exactly what they want (though a better name might be nice).  

 

Operating systems are supposed to stick to the basics.  They've just build WWW into the OS as one of the basics, and let 3rd parties use it how they want.   They still win over things like Firefox.    

Think about it, if Stardock were to write a Web browser application like MyIE2.....IE in a shell.   It would be the best browser anywhere, becuase it was written by talented people, with NATIVE controls.  

Obviously by cater to developers, you don't mean web developers. I spend an extraneous hour or two, when creating a new web page, adding css hacks galore, so it will show up decently in the browser (and still lacks have the style, and functionality, firefox user see) For example, what about fixed windows? that way, when the user scrolls down the page, the menu stays with them, and without having to scroll back up, they can go to the next page. And, also my fancy web developer toolbar, allowing me to highlight different types of elements (tables, depracated, block level, etc...). And not just hightlight, but disable things on pages, view source, validate with a quick link, to make sure my pages are compliant to the standards, and much, much more. Now in regards to developers, check out the firefox extension page. Yes, all those people writing those extensions are "developers." Firefox has much more functionality than any other browser I've tried, and it's cross platform, meaning it works on almost any common platform today. If you haven't tried firefox, I highly suggest you give it a shot. The core browser is in and of itself, powerful, let alone, when coupled with the multitude of extensions to customize your browser. And, if you've tried the older versions, but haven't tried 0.8 yet, you should try it. It's made some huge jumps in usability.
Sam

ummm, make that downloading Firefox. sorry for the typo