answer:The cursor shape will tell you if text is copyable or not. When I open the “About” box in Firefox and hover over the version number, my pointer turns from it’s usual arrow to the type cursor used for text entry. That tells me that it will behave as a text tool rather than a normal pointer, and a text tool can select and copy text whereas a normal pointer cannot. However if I put it anywhere else in that box, it’s a normal pointer that cannot select text. As for why not, the “About” box isn’t supposed to be able to be edited, and those who wrote IE figured it’s unlikely that you would want to copy it with Ctrl-C so they didn’t bother going through the added steps required to make one part of the “About” box a different format from the rest of the box to add a functionality that they didn’t think anyone would use. Why Firefox thought someone would do that is what has me boggled; until this question, I just committed it to short-term memory and typed it out when needed instead of copy/pasting it.