IE Plays Catchup

Posted on by

Is it just me, or could the “IE Add-ons Contest” have been renamed the “IE Add-the-features-Firefox-has-that-we-don’t Contest”? Of the four top addons, three implement Firefox features for IE. And the last is an extension we had first.

Even the description page for the grand prize winner admits as much:

Inline Search is an add-on for Internet Explorer that mimics Firefox’s search behavior…

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery :-)

10 thoughts on “IE Plays Catchup”

  1. I bet you laugh when IE, Opera, or Safari features are ported over to FF as extensions too, eh? Heh. The winners of your last FF-Addons contest were copying an IE7 feature. I didn’t see any blogs laughing then.

  2. I bet you laugh when IE, Opera, or Safari features are ported over to FF as extensions too, eh? Heh.

    No, I’d say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Just like now.

    The winners of your last FF-Addons contest were copying an IE7 feature.

    Really? The contest I can find, the Extend Firefox Contest, was won by “Reveal“, which “allows you to see thumbnails of pages in your session history and quickly find the page you want”.

    I’m not aware of IE 7 having that feature.

  4. On IEforge which is the “editor” of InlineSearch you can also read …

    -> We are not IE zealots, Firefox fanboys or Opera inconditionals but just developers who know that enhancing IE users browsing experience is possible and think it is an exciting challenge.

    Also …

    -> Whether you are an IE user, don’t want to change browser despite tremendous peer pressure, and know deep down that surely there must be a way to do it, even if you haven’t found it yet and/or haven’t been heard yet. Or you have to use IE and wish you could do more with it or at least as much as what you can do with your other browser on your other computer running your other operating system.

    Finally …

    -> Inline Search v 1.4.3 (cf. ChangeLog) is an extremely useful free add-on for Internet Explorer that mimics Firefox’s search behavior. It turns searching in a web page into a non modal research experience coupled with a find as you type facility. It integrates flawlessly into IE (version 5.5 or above), giving it that little extra that makes you a lot more efficient when you are looking for a specific piece of information.

    Should IE users, willing or not, not have access to cool useful features available in other browsers?

  5. “Should IE users, willing or not, not have access to cool useful features available in other browsers?”

    Of course they should. (Although I’d prefer it if there was also an extension to improve IE7s standards compliance.)

    Gerv was simply pointing out the irony in the best IE extensions being part of Firefox by default.

  6. While no one sane would argue that IE 7 is better than Firefox, be fair: Firefox copies IE features, too. For example, the yellow Information Bar that appeared first in IE 6/XP SP2. So, yeah, while “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery :-)”, in this case, you have Mozilla copying Microsoft, while the IE add-ons you’re complaining about were all made by individual developers. Yawn.

  7. Yes, IE7 has that feature, it’s called Quick Tabs.

    That’s absolutely not the same thing as Reveal. Reveal, at least from the description, is about managing entries in your session history. Quick Tabs is an “Expose”-style UI for currently-open tabs.

  8. Does anyone have a definite date for when the quick tabs thing was added to IE? The extension page for Reveal says that was first uploaded February 2006…

  9. I think DigDug was referring to Firefox Showcase and Viamatic foXpose which are similar to Quick Tabs.