Whatever Microsoft says publically about Firefox not changing their plans to upgrade IE before the next version of Windows, Longhorn, due out in 2006, there is a strong possibility that they are working on some add-ons for Internet Explorer that won’t let Firefox eat all their lunch. computerweekly.com:

… Gary Schare, director of Windows product management at Microsoft, said features could be added to Internet Explorer through the browser’s add-on technology. “It is an option for the Internet Explorer team to add functionality in between releases,” he said. “We do not have specific plans at this point to use it, but it is an option.” Microsoft’s MSN group already uses the add-on mechanism for its MSN Toolbar.

Here’s a list of four things I’d like to see in a future version of IE:

1. one clear, obvious button for an ActiveX shutoff valve. Click that button and no more ActiveX is able to run, period without flipping the switch back on. No programmer backdoors, no clever API hooks, etc. Perhaps this button should be in the new Windows security center. This would give the users power to easily disable a powerful, but also crippling feature in IE..

2. RSS integration. It’s a must! I can’t believe that with blogger evangelist like Scoble on the team that he isn’t calling the IE department almost every day wondering when this built-in integration is going to happen.

3. tabbed windows OR some other, better way of dealing with multiple windows. It’s a feature people really find useful, so why not do it? IE’s way of dealing with multiple windows is horrible by comparison. Look at programs like iRider (maybe Microsoft should buy iRider) which are built upon IE for inspiration.

4. Easy skinning ability of the IE look and feel. Being able to skin IE would attract the designer types who think they could do a better job with the pixel allocation.

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