IE, by comparison, launches almost instantly.

Because 99% of it is already loaded by the Windows OS

t's only a few critical things that keep me from fully embracing firefox.

I'm with ya. I use IE for all my Windows browsing needs, despite giving Firefox, Mozilla, and others a fair chance. Firefox isn't too far behind, and since M$ has no plans to update IE, I think it's got a shot to be the browser of the future on the Wintel platform.

Of course, now that most of my home computing is on my Powerbook, I don't need to worry about PC browser wars anymore.