Easy pardner!! ;-) I am not trying to turn this into a pissing contest, simply noting what I have observed over the years. So keep your resume in the drawer! As stated, I use XP and 2K most of the time. If you like IE, by all means, use it! I tried it recently, and felt crippled without tabs. It is like using a single button Mac mouse! But if you don't use it, you don't miss it.
MS did it's best to kill OS/2, but IBM dug its own grave in large measure on that front. OS/2 was powerful, but as unfriendly as hell. Wasn't part of the reason that IBM didn't simply make OS/2 open source because MS had code and agreements that prevented that?
Remember DR-DOS, and MS's little tricks to kill it on installation under Windows 3.1 (I think this was the Win version; it has been a while)? Bitstream and TypeManager, Stacker (shortlived anyway, partly due to HD advances), Norton Desktop and HP NewWave? All eaten up when the features were incorporated into Windows.
But is it a problem (for Firefox or whateve) when MS creates a proprietary control, and then finds ways to use it to keep other programs off the radar? Firefox isn't doing that, but MS is. I am truly surprised that MS hasn't incorporated the feature, to be honest. What advantage does it give a business to limit the customers it can reach? If a page doesn't open, most casual users think it is broken, not ActiveX dependent. If I use IE, I can't use the browser I like and am comfortable with in say, Linux. To be honest though, I haven't come across many sites that are so myopic that they can't accomodate all browsers in some capacity, so the point is fairly moot. The article that started this thread said that they would develop for other browsers, but to me, it would seem more logical to develope a site accessible to all, particularly as it is a government site, then develope special features that the IE crowd could access if it chose.
You have to ask why many computing editorial staffs and radio programs (at least around here) always, yes, always, recommend Firefox vs. IE for the very reasons I noted. They are more experienced than I. Ask them for the reasons they do so. MaximumPC is one mag that does this, and Computer Talk with Tab is a local (western MA) radio show that does likewise.
I guess the bottom line, for me anyway, is that MS has enormous resources that should be used for innovating rather than directly crushing competitors. Innovation will do that for them. Hire the people with talent to make better products before they go out and do it themselves. It appeared to me that ActiveX introduced more problems than pluses, and is still a source of problems for MS, if the number of recent patches is any indication. At least they are staying on top of it.
As you note, AMD and Intel are playing leapfrog with the technology, and that has paid off for all of us, no matter which chips you use. That is what I keep hoping Linux will do with Windows: push MS to scrap buggy code and incorporate new and great features into the OS. But now that AMD is really keeping ahead of Intel for the majority of the time, at least recently, Intel has been doing some less than noteworthy under the table dealings. Forget that crap: make a better mousetrap!
Anyway, I have screwed off enought on this! Good talking with you.
Cheers!