IE7 and competing on features

Maybe If you enable advanced tabs preferences and set to Singlewindow mode you get that you want. no extensions needed.
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Fred.cpp

For IE to be considered a "tool", they would have to incorporate vast improvements both in standards support and in usability, IMHO.
"Tool" is a much too friendly word for IE.

Firefox is a tool for me, e.g. aiding webdesign with the Webdeveloper toolbar.

I don't think that we want to reduce Firefox to "coolness". (It *is* cool, though ;-)

That is very true and should be considered very carefully by the Firefox execs.

Is the completely shameful bug in Win9x and Me that shows the standard Win icon instead of the Firefox logo fixed in the new nightlies and potentially in FF1.1?

This silly bug puts people off! A great pity.

Since IE7 will only work on machines with Windows XP / SP2 or better, can we start saying that for everyone with Windows 2000 or older that IE7 will not be free and that is will cost them several hundred dollars to get IE7?

But be careful. I am one of those people who are convinced that Microsoft will have to do something about this. There are millions of computers out there with elderly versions of Windows that for technical, economical or philosophical reasons will not be upgraded to XP. Firefox (and other members of the Gecko family), Opera, Lynx etc. work excellently on those boxes and Microsoft know this. Will they just sit back and watch the competitor browsers win market share in this segment? I don't think so.

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Walk in beauty

It may change like you said, but it is true for now. We should take advantage of this while we can. Then, later on if/when Microsoft changes IE7 to work with the old OS, we can pound on Microsoft again for following Firefox. Sort of like news reports are doing now with IE7 and tabs. It can be a win win situation for Firefox PR.

...but how do you sell end-users on standards support?

I tried the Abstract Theme and it IMHO is not quite ready to surpass Qute. The tabs are not formed properly (don't look like proper tabs, but look a bit ugly). There are other minor issues, but the tab thing turned me off.
Qute should be the default I think.

My firefox used to be painfully slow until I added the -turbo flag. Now it loads in a few seconds. I've often wondered why the -turbo flag is even there. Shouldn't it be enabled by default?

long live FireFox. I have stickers on my car, a shirt, and soon, I will be ordering the FireFox plush toy.

and being debated constructively. I've commented before on this many a times and feel the competition or at least it's powers are both being underestimated. Many believed IE7 would not have tabs, improved security, and improved web standards. It's slowly becoming clear all of these are going to be what M$ are focusing on improving, or at least marketing with IE7.

Of course it's no coincidence, it's stealing many of the core valued things FF has managed to pitch itself on and succeed. If IE7 doesnt do it any better, you can bet they'll convince many many people it is, especially with it's past history in moulding people and businesses to what they want, and what they'll convince them of with their corporate tactics.

I think Mozilla really need to step up the game and despite being open source, bring out some stunning new things, features, additions, and changes that will keep this constantly fresh, and not in any way stale.

Extensions is something I think FF should be pitched on more. There's hundreds if not thousands of good one's out there. Making people realise they can choose the features and settings they want very simply, meaning the browser is as basic or powerful as they wish, and not bogged down with features they dont need, understand, or want.

The thousands working as volunteers to constantly build and improve extensions in an open community is a huge force, and something IE will have a far harder job of competing in.

On the topic of appearance, there is a very small but effective new addition of the cute menu extension, that makes the navigation toolbar and such appear like Office XP. It carries a swish but clear blue backround on the options, add's clear good looking icons, and future versions evem make tabs appear clearer and more attractive. It even gives you a Firefox logo throbber.

All this from a very small, simple extension, that makes the browser far clearer, for me that should be at least pushed a lot further, and perhaps even put into the core. We're always making things look better, and we can bet IE7 will try to, this is a simple, small scale improvement!

I believe Internet Explorer 7 to be a second hybird browser. It will also end closed scource Internet Explorers.

I heard that IE7 won't even support CSS2. FireFox users can use this to their advantage if it turns out to be true in the end.