Why I use Firefox for Browsing instead of Internet Explorer 8

I generally like Microsoft products, however I don't have the same feeling as far as Browser is concerned. There are many small things that are not available in IE (even in latest release 8.0) which gives frustration during normal browsing. Because of which I use Firefox for regular browsing and IE is used only for Business Applications (e.g. use of ActiveX Controls etc...).

Here are some of the items which are implemented in much user friendly way in Firefox that it is in IE:

#1: Closing Tabs: Why I don't get the close tab icon for each tab in IE. I always have to select the tab so that tab gets activated and then only I get the close icon. If I have 10 tabs open and I want to close 5 of them, I have to first select each of them and then click on close.

 

 

#2: Close option when only tab is open: This should be always available and it should just point the current tab to the my Home Page.

 

#3: 'Undo Close Tab' feature of Firefox is very useful and is accessible very easy way. In IE 8 I have to open a new tab to see the list of recently closed tab.

 

#4: Adding link to Favourites: Have you ever tried adding links to Favourites in Firefox and IE8. Try to do that once and you will see the difference. If you drag the link over a Folder in Firefox the folder gets expanded and you can place the link any where or even in a nested folder inside the root folder. However doing the same in IE 8 you can see that the folder doesn't gets expanded and you end up adding the link to the root folder.

#5: Expanding of Favourites folder: Very small thing but really effective. In Firefox you expand one Favourite folder and then mouse over to the next folder, you can see that the previous folder gets closed and the current highlighted folder gets expanded. However do the same thing in IE and you can see that nothing happens. If you click once the previous folder gets closed and if you click second time then the current folder gets expanded. Very bad indeed.

#6: Download Manager: Why there is not a integrated Download Manager in IE 8.

#7: Firefox's Awesome Bar is really more intelligent than the IE 8. 80% of the time (for me) I get what I am looking for just by typing the relevant words.

These are just few point to which I will keep adding which hopefully gives some ideas to Microsoft folks to why a common user is forced to use other browsers over IE for regular browsing.