> This is the one feature I'm quite puzzled about. Installing a Smart Tag
> list seems to involve getting a file onto the users hard disk. Which
> means an install routine.

Yep.

> There's was one rumour that the List file could be embedded or attached to
a web page.

You can embed SmartTags in a page, but those tags will only work for that
page.

> Can anyone confirm this? The whole feature would actually be
> considerably more powerful if it was slightly less decentralized and had
> more of an element of auto update about it.

The SmartTags spec only provides for the interface to the browser. The
developer is free to extend the backend any way he pleases. There are two
ways to implement SmartTags- one with an XML list of terms and actions, the
other with a DLL that searches each word dynamically. _What the dll uses to
search that term is up to the developer_. IOW, your SmartTag recognizer
could very easily search for matches in a database on another machine
(performance would be quite a factor here). Probably a better way to do it
would be to have a local database updated periodically and automatically,
and searches could be performed against that database.

The XML file method does provide for automatic updates by allowing the
developer to specify some optional tags in the bottom of the file that
specify a location to retreive updates from. From what I understand the
browser takes care of it for you.

> Conceptually this is quite like the problem of a spelling checker having
> to have it's dictionary installed locally. Except that the dictionary
> data is more dynamic.

Sort of. But if you're the one writing the spell checker, you can store the
dictionary wherever you can reach it. SmartTags lets you do this...