For the last few weeks, I've been trying out Firebird (a lightweight, Mozilla-based browser) as my browser.  Several of my co-workers swear by it.  It has some features that IE doesn't have that are really compelling.

• Tabbed browsing - Browse multiple pages in one window.  This is the main reason I like Firebird.
• Pop-up blocking - Blocks annoying pop-ups. This is currently very annoying to do in IE.
• Rich plug-in/add-in support
• Low memory profile - Less than 20MB under normal circumstances.  It even dumps its current working set when minimized which usually takes it down below 4MB.

It's drawbacks, in my opinion, are many.  Lots of pages JUST DON'T WORK because they are targeted for IE, or are otherwise not standards-compliant.  Who is at fault for this is completely irrelevant.  IT JUST DOESN'T work.

I got to thinking about it and realized there is nothing keeping someone from using the IE core and creating a browser with all of the above features.  For instance, my RSS aggregator, SharpReader, uses the IE core to render contents.  I thought about writing one myself, but decided if it was so easy, someone's bound to have done it.

With one Google search, I found several.  My favorite is MyIE2, the second generation of a tabbed browser using the IE core.  It has ALL (ALL) of the Firebird/Mozilla features I like plus the advantage of having the IE core engine, complete in all it's “evilness”.  So for now, Firebird is uninstalled.