The blank new tab page serves many purposes in IE 8. To re-open a closed tab within IE 8, open a blank tab, then chose among the recently closed tabs displayed on the page. In Firefox 3, while you can restore a closed tab, you are not offered a choice, only the last tab closed is reopened. If you want to restore an entire previous session, the blank tab page in IE 8 also offers that choice. Finally, if you want to add or change the Accelerator Indicator choices, the blank tab page provides that as well.
Photo credit: Microsoft
Yes, on the one hand it is great to see M$ adding comparable functionality to its browser.
But on the other hand, you have to ask yourself, if it is right or good to reward such plagiarism.
You'll remember that Netscape was virtually wiped out financially, by M$ copying the functionality of Netscape, and offering the equivalent M$ IE product for free (the first browser war).
Then the competition watchpuppies of the US and EU had problems with M$' plan to 'tightly bundle' the browser within the OS offering to prevent other 'upstarts'.... Plus the Halloween Documents (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents
) made it clear that standards subversion was the intent.
So you are left with the philosophical choice of supporting these practices, or supporting the newer Open Source competition (eg Firefox) to keep browsing of the web an open-standards environment... With good support for Open Source and standards, browsers can be tested for standards-compliance, and developers will never again be forced to 'customise' a web site for a particular intended browser... or be duped into utilising proprietary protocols.