1. Do you get a lot of spam in your inbox?
2. Do you dislike it when advertisement windows pop up when you’re browsing?
3. Do you get spam popup windows even when your browser isn’t open?
4. Do you often come across websites that don’t open or display correctly?
5. Do you use Internet Explorer?

If you answered yes to #5, I’d bet you answered yes to at least one of the previous four questions. The fact is, Internet Explorer is very insecure, doesn’t comply with the coding standards set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium, and is going to stay that way for the foreseeable future, until such time as Microsoft decides it’s in their best interests to ship a competitive browser. I quote from Lockergnome’s Why You Should Dump Internet Explorer:

What makes other browsers better than IE at protecting vs. spyware and other attacks? Well, it?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ¥s simple really – most other browsers don?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ¥t make it so easy to install malicious software on your system without you knowing about it. IE makes it relatively trivial through two features called ActiveX and Active Scripting. These technologies were designed specifically for the purpose of giving websites more control over a user?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ¥s computer. Unfortunately, as we have seen with exploit after exploit – that?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ¥s not always a good thing. In addition to the spyware issues, IE in general has had a terrible track record when it comes to all types of serious security issues. For years now, it?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ¥s seemed like every time you turn around there is a new way to have your computer taken over via Internet Explorer. Put ?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ?internet explorer?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ? and ?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ?allow an attacker to execute commands?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ? (with the quotes) into Google and you?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ¥ll see what I mean.

Do yourself a favor: switch to Mozilla Firefox. It’s a fast, stable, and it’s got tabs. Lockergnome explains:

What this allows you to do is have multiple pages open within a single browser window. Rather than going from window to window in the taskbar, you can simply switch between clearly visible tabs, all within the same view. You can even do this and many other commands via the keyboard if you are into that sort of thing. Using Firefox will not require any major shift in your daily browsing habits. It?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ¥ll import your favorites automatically, and you can benefit from the improved security starting the first time you open it. With the popup blocking enabled, you can breath quite a bit easier when browsing to unknown sites. Attempts to install garbage on your system that could have easily succeeded if you were using IE will simply be ignored by Firefox. Plus, the whole time you?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ¥re browsing you?¢‚Ǩ?°?É‚Äû?ɬ¥ll know that you are doing your part to keep the soul of the Internet alive by choosing to use a browser whose developers actually care about standards.

Try it for a week. If you still prefer IE, it’s your funeral.**

Update:

I just found that a Metafilter poster concurs. They also recommend Mozilla’s Thunderbird for email, as do I.

* King Lear, Act IV, Scene VI, line 277, which can be heard at the end of the Beatles’ I Am the Walrus.

** By ‘your funeral’, I mean ‘your eight hour virus hunt, defeat, operating system re-installation, and increased risk of heart disease from avoidable stress.’