Some browsers use alternate fonts so that using cols=40 gives a different width in IE than other browsers. I've added a screenshot of what this looks like in firefox. A stype tag should be added for consistency. Instead of just cols=40, you should also add style="width:540px; height:250px" i.e. change from Code: <textarea name="message" rows="20" cols="40" wrap="virtual" tabindex="2"></textarea> to Code: <textarea name="message" rows="20" cols="40" style="width:540px; height:250px" wrap="virtual" tabindex="2"></textarea>
firefox does what it's suppose to do: be fast. Firefox is about twice as fast as IE in my experience. On a unrelated note, I switched from 1.5mbs to 3.0mbs the same night i switched from IE to firefox, but i'm sure it's totally unrelated. I do have a few pet peeves with firefox though. 1. can't copy an image into the clipboard. 2. can't drag n drop bookmarks or rename them without loading the bookmark manager, and 3. the optional tabs. I'm using firefox only because they use a smaller font in the menu.
Firefox is good, but if you are talking about loading time, nothing beats IE, since it's integrated. But since IE sucks, you should check out MYIE2, its a tabbed alternative, and offers many of the functions that Firefox has. The only bad thing is that they seem to update their program at least a couple times a month.