Ya, this is a typical Microsoft marketing tactic.  They've been doing the same type of marketing against all their competitors since the late '80's. 

Check out their comparison between IE8 and Firefox:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/get-the-facts/browser-compari...

I'm not sure how you can justify saying that Firefox is less customizable, less secure, and less reliable, and lower performing than IE8.  In my experience, FF is pretty stable compared to any version of IE, and I've always been able to find an extension for anything I need to do in FF.  And don't get me started on the performance difference.