Your complaints are merely from the lack of understanding of what Firefox was, and what it will be, and for that matter the process of developing software at all. Let me start at the top, though.

You forgot to uninstall Firefox 0.9 (or whatever you had) before reinstalling. Failing to do this will corrupt your installation. If you can't follow directions, heh, I really can't help you out. Try reading the release notes, or the installation guide to get an idea of what you should and should not be doing.

Secondly, did you actually expect the extensions to work? If so, you have another misunderstanding of how plugins work even at a simple level. Firefox (including the version you were using) are previews, meaning that the plugin api can and will change a lot before it's stable. After its stable, then huge sweeping changes might only occur with major releases every few years. And if you had gotten it installed all the way, you would've seen the extension updater, an easy tool to upgrade all, some, or even just one of your extensions to the newest version. It does it automatically every so often too. Nifty , eh?

Well, seeing as how IE just came out with mediocre pop-up blocking with SP2, I'd really like to see it catch up with Firefox in terms of features. Heck, IE doesn't even have complete CSS2 support yet.

You're wrong to assume people will switch back to IE just because they encounter a little trouble getting their extensions to work. Mostly advanced users even bother with them now, and those who rely on them will find a way to make them work. Why would a user give up functionality and switch back to a browser that doesn't even offer the feature? It seems you have to invent reasons to hide the fact that Firefox is innovating while IE remains stagnant.

As for Sunbird, it is hardly a finished product, and will take quite some time to reach the functionality of Outlook. The Office suite is the one area where I give Microsoft credit for doing an outstanding job -- but they can't help do otherwise with their billions of dollars poured into R&D. Sunbird, however, will someday be an interesting alternative for users like me who can't afford the high price of Office software.

Have a whack at ThunderBird while you're there. But wait for SunBird to hit 1.0 before you start whining about it. What are the version numbers on MSIE and MSLookOut?

Me, I use Konqueror and Kontact, stable and powerful (modulo Konq's JavaScript, AKA Achilles' heel) but they're not an easy option under MS-Windows (yet).

http://redmondmag.com/features/article.asp?editorialsid=439

that the nay-sayers always have a problem installing the program?

Heh Heh...u should try installing the latest Sunbird release (windows installer version). It chokes after you have selected the optional developer tools (it says it cannot find the developer tools). So the installation is done half - it leaves an icon on the desktop. When you click on that icon, sunbird creates multiple instances of itself in the memory, but does not show up on the screen. And when you go to Add/Remove programs, it does not show up there either.

I\'m sticking with good \'ol Outlook.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/14/ie_bug_revived/

the army at redmond cant fix a silly bug. so much for the mighty browser that spawns a million viruses.