The s0-called “browser” war heated up again, with the release of Firefox 4 and IE 9.   So far Firefox is blowing IE out of the water, and for a very good reason (bolded below)…

Firefox, in contrast, continues to support Windows XP. Mozilla knew coming in that it would have a built-in advantage, based on Microsoft’s choice to support only the newer Windows Vista and 7.

“That’s a decision that they get to make, but it sure did surprise us, because the best metrics that we’ve got say 40 to 50 percent of the web is still on XP. That’s too big for us to just leave them behind,” said Johnathan Nightingale, the Firefox engineering director, in a recent interview.

Why no IE9 on XP? Microsoft’s reasoning is that browsers “should require the modern graphics and security infrastructure that have come along since 2001.” The company says in a statement that “Internet Explorer 9 is intended to be run on a modern operating system in order to build on the latest hardware and operating system innovations.”

via Technolog – Firefox 4 soars, thanks to Microsoft’s Luddite customers.

Got that?  XP is not a modern operating system, with modern graphics or security infrastructure…which is true…when running IE.

Running Firefox or Chrome on XP is not only faster than IE, but much, much safer.    As a long-time MS OS user, there has been no real reason for me to upgrade from a patched and fully functional XP box.

Bad juju on MS for making a silly decision, with even worse logic behind it.