When Microsoft announced that it wanted to use hardware based acceleration for its next flavor of Internet Explorer, the tech mags were quick to praise the outfit for being jolly clever.

However it turns out that the world + dog is doing the same thing and it is not particularly clever or original. Mozilla has been on the blower to us saying that it is planning to do the same with Firefox. Already its developers have posted a prototype demonstrating the ability to take advantage of Direct2D and DirectWrite.

Google is also looking at techniques to hardware-accelerate Chrome, although it is being less forthcoming with details. However while Microsoft might have scooped the headlines, Mozilla folks believes it will be the first to deliver a hardware-accelerated browser.

Redmond hints that a final version of IE9 will appear in spring 2011 probably at the next time as Windows 8.