This post is incredibly vague, and it is missing the point. First of all, it doesn't explain the huge lack of standards in IE9 that Paul Roget mentions. And second, it forgets that IE has a really awful record on making browsers (IE has been the biggest drag on the web being more usable and modern for the last 10 years).

At least Paul's post gives a tangible and definition of what 'modern' means in form of checklist points that are easy to prove true or false just by looking at the browser implementation. How do you measure 'modern', Microsoft? You will have to do better than saying it is 'faster' and that provides 'rich, immersive experiences'.

Mozilla hasn't stopped pushing the web to its boundaries and making a big effort to put standards first during all these years. And there is no doubt that the new Firefox will be a much better browser than the new IE (check out the beta).

Also, where is the strict mode in IE9?