Nah, not really. But a small design-related victory of beloved Firefox took place a few days ago.
Microsoft decided to adopt the nifty little icon that Firefox uses to signify RSS and Atom feeds! (after much discussion, obviously) No more 
and 
buttons, guys, replace them as you see fit.
Many ask why bother adopt a default icon, since RSS and XML orange ones were ok, most people recognized them at once, and yada yada. Some of the reasons include the facts that RSS & XML are technical terms that naive users shouldn’t be obliged to know, while they concern specific technologies of live feeds and not the feature in general. Moreover, these acronyms are in English, restricting their language scope a lot.
So there! I liked that one better anyway.
2 comments on this post
Maria #1
15.Dec.05
I think it was a no win situation for the IE team. All the proposed icons looked unsuitable, some didn’t represent the function others looked a lot like Firefox’s. But that’s what happens when you’re the last to adopt new technologies
Btw, Opera just uses a blue RSS label in the address bar, even if the feed is Atom. This is one of the few interface errors I’ve found in this browser.
Sugar #2
15.Dec.05
Yes, that is one of the main arguments against the RSS icon, there are many different feed technologies which go under different names, one cannot group them all in one!