First:
- IE9 is for Vista SP2 and Win7; Firefox has to contend with XP (which doesn't have Direct2D), and moreover, if IE9pre4 is any indication, every new version of IE 9 comes with Direct2D hotfixes (Microsoft can modify Windows system files, Mozilla sure can't).
- Firefox 4 beta 4 is worlds more stable than IE9pre4 - these days, I spend more time in daily builds than in Firefox 3.6.8.
They're not yet confident in their hardware acceleration code because, well, it's new, and it depends on so much stuff:
- system libraries
- hardware drivers
- actual hardware
That, until Direct2D is a proven, true, stable technology, well, they'll default to software rendering.
And they still have a few betas and RCs to go through: hardware acceleration may still be switched on by default in the RCs. In fact, I bet that we'll see Firefox 4 beta 5 or 6 with HW-accel on right after IE9 beta 1 in september.
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